Alexis Pope

In a Sea of Wild Ponies

This is where I sit
I remember your death
my stubbed toe
the streetlight of your bare chest

There were wild animals
where they told me you would be
It’s okay though because we all got along like
electric fences

When you died I couldn’t eat Pop Rocks
for months It seemed too much
In my mouth it tasted of molasses
it tasted like an open window
it tasted like deer fur

I can no longer swallow
I want to bang my head on that
telephone pole like it’s a windshield
and I’m the freaking bird

You will always be a dead jerk
because you left me like a boarded house
after the meth lab explodes
and there’s no more meth
just bones and burning flesh
and peacocks because they’re vicious
like lab rats with cancer

Please don’t judge me
I can’t take any more
After you died they treated me like
the three legged chair in the snow
No one could sit on me

In a Sea of Wild Ponies

In this one I bite my nails down to the bed. I tie your arms to the post. I read you Bible verses and whip you with braided shoestrings. There is no escape! There is no more sunlight or puppies or cellophane. Imagine! No puppies.

In this one the world ends and we are left dangling in the sky like released balloons. Messages tied to our strings that no one will ever receive. Did they think someone would actually write back? Maybe they would have if the world didn’t end. It’s so dark now and I’m embarrassed because you have to see me with my makeup off.

It’s all like they said it would be, except not at all. When the world ended we decided no one knew anything about it. Yesterday we looked at each other from across the room like pigeons. We didn’t give a shit! Today is much different because our room is gone and I’m not sure why we’re not dead or maybe we are and heaven is less like heaven and more like we’re balloons and we just need a place to land.