The Day You Put Your Skin On Backwards

FAKE SALEM
Kristin Hatch

we have fake milk here & fake anta & fake pajamas & we fall in love like math with whatever’s around: meatsteaks or shelving and/or wagner (usually wagner). in fake salem, it’s weather all the time. oh hello, parson. oh, hello PTA. what a blessing all these stripmalls. what a true asphalt marvel. in salem, we like home improvement. we like electronics. We like designer fashions for cheap. & heavens, you should see the churches. arenas like you’ve never seen. fuck greece. we’re talking rubies carved out. woods? there are woods some. it doesn’t really matter though, because they took away our dogs. fake salem is full of musicians in single-file rows all begging us back. truly, they all come back. oh hello, cake-eyes, I remember you! dipshit scoundrel. god, it can be such a bore. all of my patients are the very same patient! everybody’s fucking ass holes except maybe for that florist. i trust her hands. whatever. all of our skin is jokes we fit into, we are the messages in this fortune cookie.

from Kristin Hatch's Through The Hour Glass
chosen due to its graphic design and grammatical choices

ALL OF OUR SKIN IS JOKES WE FIT INTO
Adam Stone

I don't want to be creepy but let's get high and see if we can get trish to take off her pants and give us blow jobs You giggle You stupid opportunist You giver of pants i don't want and she needs How you held me in your own bed How you saw kriss kross on in living color and showed up at the bus stop the next day with your clothes on backwards You're not the miggity miggity miggity manything You want to age into normalcy Manager of motels with empty pools Carrier of unwashed towels dried and folded to save on water You bared your ass at me in the locker room and called me faggot You bared your ass at me in my living room and called me please You never knew when to call me which name You're not gay if there's a girl to watch you touch me It's funny Wanting my body is hilarious Who would desire such a specter Maybe you meant spectacle You always worded wrong Wrong fashion sense Wriggling your bridged tooth at unimpressed girls Who knocked that tooth out? Who bruised your wherever this time? Did you call someone the wrong name in the wrong dark again? When we grew up we should move to san francisco together wasn't even the most suspect thing you said that day Did you wrestle your stereotypes as they demoned your want? Now that you florida Now that you've methed into more bridges who do you wiggle your teeth at? Who do you kiss when nobody's watching?