Emily J. Cousins: This Body Is a Monstrous Trap

Emily J. Cousins: This Body Is a Monstrous Trap
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LIKE MEANING IS COMING

 

wake up to the rain at 2 maybe not rain pretend it’s rain

keep the lights out watch the storm come in

 

too many redundancies in the system

what an itch time to write about the seasons again again

 

I want to tell you I dream mostly about the women I meet

& work but I don’t know what I mean by that & I haven’t

 

been dreaming all that much anyways

you’ll edit it anyways anyways no no be quiet

 

my turn to talk I am such a honey trap for you

only write like this when you are away & what does that mean

 

& don’t go down that path because maybe there is simply

too much of me for this room

 

for you probably for this poem every time

I’m looking for a new way to sabotage w/o fail & one day

 

we will walk to the park and you will _____ & I will say little

or nothing same as I always do & it will rain

 

coming home a hot wet summer water will take the petals from the trees

make a trench in the bed & lie there

 

don’t plan on getting up keep your mouth shut jaw tight

thought like a single playing card

 

like a scrap of text no no a string unraveling slowly

no real predicting it what a noisy experiment maybe our bodies

 

will clog the machine long enough let’s get high and pretend

the weather doesn’t affect us the weather doesn’t affect us

 

I will try to sleep because lord knows when else & you will count

merchandise it does not affect us let’s pretend

 

like some new undiscovered planet growing in you expand expand

expand sometimes I don’t know how to feel lucky to be w/ you

 

be sure to break me all those nasty habits

place the snare under the leaves behind the couch in the sheets

 

write about meaning like I am going to find it

 

like meaning is coming just wait

but life is distracting me from everything I need to be thinking

 

& this body is a monstrous trap of molecules

moon still high & hunched at 9AM imagine getting on the hwy

 

avoid the whole lot right now my libido work disinterest in general &

I am so not this body this more & more spider like thing

 

& somehow that is meaning                           meaning is coming


Emily J. Cousins lives, teaches, and writes in Denver, CO. Emily’s poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Denver Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Copper Nickel, Bombay Gin, Hobart, The Collapsar, and elsewhere.