Here I am wiggling in the bathroom stall
trying to trigger the automatic flush.
Here I am eating cold scrambled eggs in the
bathtub. Pouring salt directly into my
purple mouth and singing sodium.
Pulling back my skin at its edges -
around fingernails and eyeballs
until I unravel. Lying in my body whose power
does not come from legs. Lying next to a ghost
of my body, making myself look at it when I want to feel
a shiver up what might be called
a spine.
Shelby Dale DeWeese grew up on a farm in the southeastern United States, but now lives and writes in California. She earned her MFA from the University of San Francisco, and her poems have been published by Rust+Moth, Quaint Magazine, and other publications. She is the social media manager for Pinwheel, a journalist for MuggleNet, and a programs coordinator at 826 Valencia. She can be found online at shelbydaledeweese.com.