One, I imagine she’s in the throes of
writing her first graphic novel, this young
woman, a remarkable piece entitled New Tales
from Mental Illness. It will go unnoticed. Two, she
will go to a Reggaeton festival and weep.
Once so afraid of getting a bad grade, even in health, she
memorized every boy body part and became
known as cringe. In her final years of school she’d
fantasize about Canada, construction workers,
her grandfather’s farm, and life as a poet. Three, we both
find America too much. I say she takes
the E Line to the Dollar Tree where she’ll
be approached by a specter of a man so disoriented
it’s almost charming. He’ll offer to baptize her
right then and there.
But we are finished with kneeling.
Who else will join us, smash our phones like wafers,
watch the blue light bleed out? Four, I say she’ll kick
a vending machine until it obeys. The bus will come
stinking of centuries of women waiting.
I might follow on board, seat myself beside a cracked ad
for mascara and hum the myth of good behavior.
When the driver asks for our fare, our tongues will expand:
it’s already been paid for. By Wilshire and 10th,
she’ll become incandescent. A quiet apocalypse in boots
and eyeliner. Five, the city bends to us.
Six, seven, eight, there’s no turning back. Destruction
has one drawback. We know precisely
where we are, naked as jaybirds, throwing a fish
to the animals. Our own awkward, bare humanity.
Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a bi-coastal writer and educator. Her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she is the author of eight books. Candice reads for The Los Angeles Review and The Weight Journal; she also serves as a 2025 AWP Poetry Mentor.
