Poetry by Kristen Mitchell

                   lauren rushing CC



eating my depression 


fucking it all up
stop talking
don’t gush
take a muscle relaxer
pretend ur in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
ur jaw isn’t sore
lick the wallpaper
find a way out
expensive language is on the plate
eat it
look for a way to say, “I’m not sad,
I love life, the flowers are lovely”
just pretend
just imagine 
grip the thought bubble like a fine piece of luggage
extinguish what sets you aflame
be light
be the fucking dali lama
or scream, “fuck the dali lama!”
eat eat eat
get fat on that junk food depression
this is not an instruction manual 




hoarding


your purses hung with tags
could have paid my college tuition
packs of diet coke
stacked in the back room
a slow aspartame suicide

quit smoking & the local mall
becomes your ashtray
are you sad? you say 
let me buy that for you 
to make up for the times in the ER
when I was too tired to look at you
in your pain

humanizing hoarding
the constant piling 
of boxed emotions
instead of letting me in
let me know 
why I did this

​

Kristen Mitchell is a queer, disabled poet living in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She's studied literature, art history, and philosophy. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Abandoned Library, i am afraid always (Wanting to Die Poetry Club), and Bhakti Blossoms (Golden Dragonfly).

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