Discarnate
a poem by Melanie Sevcenko
Oh hey / I walk now / sending salutations forward on my breath / as a wish
unmoored from a dried weed /my memories available only to me from an
antiquated technology / The humming click of the carousel /advancing the
next slide where we picnicked /unwrapped gifts / hallucinating a loving bunch
I let days pass over me / I live inside my Ghost Sheet / where I fundraise /
watch TV / explode / and apologize for my hunger / I listen so intently to the
podcast from my meager computer speakers / attempting to cut vegetables
even quieter / The hosts speak of attachment entities / enough on some poor
saps to clamp their jaws / make their backs bare invisible burdens / A man
awakes from hypnotherapy to layers of lost souls / in his eyes / on his brain /
compounded against his biceps / I try to lose my own in the shower / shrug
them off at the mirror / I could blame my failed attempts at education on
being decapitated in a medieval battle / my inability to stop ramming people
as consequence of my war injury / It’s not my fault / When I was a baby
sleeping in a plastic pod / a soldier walked into me and got caught / I carry
his steel pins in my bones / Now I make my way from under the sheet and
into flat wide spaces / with discounted food on the periphery / My husband at
the goal post / this carousel in my hands / wishing to be a wheel / my arm
dropping as a flag