Five Poems

memory from before you lost your mind

I learned the word anvil
from Bugs Bunny.
Grandma’s parlor TV
tray lunch, mailman
uncle asleep upstairs.
we all work nights
in this family. Boxed
steamship photos
Beetlejuice figurines
fake wood paneling.
My dad made it out
so he knows what webinar
means. converter cable
neighbors work in silence
they don’t have a dad
anymore.
me,
I am waiting for the foam ceiling
to drop

tap dancing

I care a lot
about being irrelevant
in case of freak
accidents like
a car driving into my
house. I know
some girls carry
ibuprofen
and I envy that,
having the backseat
illness.
life is all the time
gym class
to grave but
I resist putting
shit in the mailbox
because it’s illegal.
mister morse code
voice in my head says
beep beep
beep
mailboxes are
trashcans if
you have nothing
good
to say

undisclosure

reading your cause of death
in a rented car
high’s coming up
men say the damndest things

backseat manifesto
everybody’s got one
I’ll keep quiet if you
drop me off at home

me and the dog get real sad
after having a little treat
like we both know
nothing else is coming

could have done without

tried being a social climber
was too honest
you fancied yourself
a Futurist turned
out to be just
Italian
as I
get
old
-er
there
is less
of my
life to
lose

partners stick together

on our tongues
is cum fused like hot
honey

the dog eats
a pen we’re busy
ink all over his
snout

learned my lesson
words are feces
of the mouth

∩

L Scully (they) is a living writer. L cofounded Stone of Madness Press and now writes books in an attic. Their second collection, self-romancing, comes out with Michelle Tea’s DOPAMINE Books in autumn 2025. They are a lover.