Poetry by Kelly Mullins

              emilykneeter CC



You’re Preaching
to the Chaos

Be hot
Take your walks
Taste the rainbow
And eat the rich

They’re now 

Depression prevention walks
Instead of plain depression walks

That’s progress

I secretly like it when it’s all taken away
The stores, the hotels, the restaurants, you

An invisible man

Pulling red ribbons repeatedly 
Through my windpipe

And strings that guide
My mannequin eyes

It’s never something you ate you know

You miss reading books in other places
And having compassion for past selves 

Talks about trauma triggered things
For siblings that can’t be said

The theft of time
Intrinsically intertwined

Want to see the shops
Stay galleries,

With clothes drops, 
Bookshelves and block parties

Mutually aided on every corner
Formed a council of reps

The PowerPoint is sometimes a poem you know...

As our parents fixate on
The dot dot dot

Welcome to my presentation 

On Bumblebee Bats
Boomers’ use of ellipses 
And Rocky Horror lips

Longing for more
But can’t quite articulate it

The obsession is the sister

Events & Injustices
An ad for ayahuasca

Both wounded in a specific way
Over-described and under-theorized

You don’t have to draft 
The Problem Analysis

But you do have to write 
A report about it

The Female Search for Love,
Relationship Anarchy,
The Removal of Hierarchy, 

And the chaotic compass 
That’s writing your own rules

Only responding 
Is worse than obstructing 

Only manipulating
Is worse than murdering 

The Black Wing of the Works Council

Independence and intimacy 
Coexisting under the same roof

Over-described and under-theorized

Google’s raw material
Google: raw material

Is the surplus of our behavior
So how do we seize?

The means of production
When we have become it
​




Instructions for Thirst Trapping 
​

1. Take generous gulps
2. Until the liquid drips down your face
3. And wreaks havoc 
4. On your champagne esophagus
5. Read
6. Ration empathy 
7. Post mirror selfies
8. Google: “trauma bonds”
9. Take the attachment style quiz
10. (Again)
11. Then grab your keys and go 
12. To the shit motel where the front desk girl snaps gum in your face 
13. Ask for a room 
14. Smize, shut the door and
15. Let him into your mind like a theme park ride 
16. Write it down 
17. Draft 200 words you’ll never use
18. Invite him “to hang” at yours 
19. Take out the trash 
20. Wear tight pants to show off your ass 
21. And a loose shirt to indicate 
22. How little you care 
23. Offer him a Heineken 
24. Hose him down
25. Kick off your shoes 
26. But don’t kiss him!
27. When he asks how you want it 
28. Answer wordlessly in the mirror 
29. Call your parents to pass the time 
30. Water the plants 
31. Check the smoke detector 
32. Ask him to fix the fridge 
33. When he leaves toss his phone in the toilet 
34. And have him hold you 
35. Ten seconds longer than you do him 
36. Communicate only through captions
37. Wonder how often he looks at your profile
38. If he’s ever, really turned your face to the side and studied it
39. When he takes ten hours to respond
40. You take twenty 
41. You’re busy anyway
42. Washing the dishes 
43. Scrubbing yourself of the obsession
44. (With a nice Aesop exfoliant of course)
45. Lay on the hardwood floor 
46. Realize it’s lava 
47. Wonder if he’s with the front desk girl
48. Or alone 
49. Check your messages
50. You have one new notification  
51.  ​​

​

Kelly Mullins is an American writer, workplace organizer, and climate activist living in Amsterdam. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Allegory Ridge Poetry Anthology, Hash Journal, Maudlin House and In Parentheses.

---