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<div class="main-des"><p>I don’t want to write [[poetry->red delicious]]
about [[girls->a girl built from books]] turning into birds
or boys disappearing through magic doors.
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<small>© Meep Matsushima 2018</small></div></div>
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>red delicious</h4>you make a poem look easy
like [[bleeding->underworld]]
but really it’s like pulling teeth
perhaps if you are beloved of monsters
you can sit down at your typewriter
and bleed
at odd moments
poems simmer beneath my surfaces
fragile apple skin
separates us
inside I am both bitter and sweet
but I have bills to pay
and I do not [[bleed poetry->fairy tale]]
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>chat room blues</h4>tried to sleep, but
this reminds me too much of two years ago:
waiting for your answer, my
cursor blinking in an empty box
can’t find words
for what I’m feeling
and we were friends when we were
broken; I hope we can still fit together
whole, but maybe
we need our jagged edges to fill each other
out. a lot has changed since the last time we
spoke, but some things stay true:
it’s been a long time
but I still write poetry about you
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>a girl built from books</h4>when i moved to the city, i only packed one book
it was full of strange magic and i forgot my own
at immigration; i left that all behind,
as though i could shed my own mythology
like a skin, fold it up on my closet floor
with easter dresses,
and halloween costumes
i walked through the streets in a daze, eating only
glamour; [[pomegranates->Persephone]] won’t fill you up when you are a girl
of skin and bones and ink and dust
but i stopped eating anything but the food of the [[underworld]], until
starving, i woke up from a hundred-year-long dream
and consumed every book i ever loved to fill the void
ravenous, i ate books until i [[bled poetry->red delicious]]
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<div class="main-des"><p>
<p>ghost conversation:
"I died so I could you."
"I miss missing you."<div class="main">
<div class="main-des"><p><h4>fairy tale</h4>spilling stories out from my fingertips,
pricked that spindle long ago
fell asleep from [[dreaming->Persephone]]
woke up to a thorn bush
gathered nettles growing,
wove them into flaxen gold
to save myself from this spell
i couldn’t guess her name, who
spun gold from straw before my eyes,
twisting a thing from itself
into something else
she offered me an [[apple->red delicious]], poisoned
to survive its bite, i changed;
a dragon who burned the cinders
of the girl with glass shoes
i gave up my voice
cut open by the knife of forgiveness
bled my poems out into the ground
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<div class="main-des"><p>I've never
met a ghost, never
walked through a magic door, never
fallen down a rabbit hole.
I'm just not that kind of girl.
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>Narnian exile</h4>
<b>me:</b> WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
<b>you:</b> idk narnia or some shit
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>Persephone</h4>you thought you were the [[girl->a girl built from books]]
but you're the [[dark forest]].
you thought you were the adventurer,
but you're actually the [[underworld]].
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>the monster in the dark forest</h4>once upon a time I met a monster
in the shape of a girl
deep in the dark forest
nobody ever believes me
when I tell them about the [[void->underworld]]
visible through the cracks
at the crow’s feet
when she grinned
with too many teeth;
the smile didn’t reach her eyes
her eyes were all black
but who would believe that?
it’s just an urban legend
I am telling you a [[story->a girl built from books]].
I am telling you the [[truth->bibliography]].
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>child of the underworld</h4>“she smashed the mirror,” says the girl
she is talking about the ghost
who peeled the paper from the walls
while you were out
buying food to feed her
a hungry ghost with black eyes
gorging herself on air and ashes
until her bones stuck out at odd angles
and she was bloated on emotions
“she smashed the mirror,” says the ghost
she is talking about the girl
who [[opened up her veins->red delicious]]
spilling blood like roses
all over the kitchen floor
a void where a girl should be
starving herself on cigarettes
until her lips crack like pavement
you thought you knew the [[girl->Persephone]]
but were you talking to the [[ghost->bibliography]]?
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>table of contents</h4>[[fairy tale]]
[[a girl built from books]]
[[red delicious]]
[[Persephone]]
[[dark forest]]
[[child of the underworld->underworld]]
[[the monster in the dark forest->dark forest]]
[[Annotated Bibliography of a Haunting->bibliography]]
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<div class="main-des"><p><h4>Bloody Mary</h4>I wouldn't say your name three times into a mirror at night
lights off,
doors locked,
candles lit.
<div class="main">
<div class="main-des"><p><h4>An Annotated Bibliography of a Haunting</h4>
It has been proposed
that two (or more¹) conscious entities
could inhabit a single human body.
<div align="right">all of those souls,
stuffed into the shape of a girl
with empty eyes</div>
The proposed mechanisms
of this inhabitation<ul><li>gateway (Watcher)</li><li>trauma (Schreiber 1973)</li><li>median (Adriel)</li><li>split (Stevenson 1886)</li></ul> remain unproven;
the medical and legal communities
are divided
<div align="right">there was another girl
(there was no other girl)
but if there was another girl
her name was a [[secret->dark forest]]
and I loved her</div>
on the scientific basis
of the diagnosis (Gleaves 2007, Reinders 2008)
and some believers maintain
that they are not “sick”
at all (Lee).
<div align="right">there was something
[[very wrong->underworld]] with that girl
but it wasn’t
dissociative identity disorder</div>
<small>¹The largest number claimed is as many as the angels who could dance on the head of a pin. The average is 13 (Kihlstrom 2005).</small>
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