Marisa Crawford
Shift (C'mon Get Happy) | Amy Maloof
Don't let me cry at the party.
Don't let me drink like a monster.
Make time stop. I was so bad
I made time stop.
Hyphen this, hyphen that.
I looked so all-American in the picture of us
where your finger was up my nose.
If you miss me, just say so. With your arms.
Ring a bell. I sang, I'm proud to be an American,
ironically. I cried a single space shuttle tear.
I killed the fruit fly with a Starbucks napkin while saying,
“bitches get stitches.”
Rebecca on the phone at work said
the landing page was halted, I heard “haunted.” I’m a creep.
How I think about you at night when the world’s ending.
Oh it’s one o’ clock. Oh I’m thirty.
I live in New York City. My hair is turning gray
with excitement, Leland Palmer style.
In 8th grade words felt edgy. People had secrets.
Scary feelings filled the room like shadows.
Music from violins.
I’m talking to myself in front of the bike shop.
I’m channeling Shannon Hoon eating corn on the cob
in Janie’s closet. I’m channeling myself
in 2007 getting ready for the party.
I’m projecting outside my body so far.
Separated-at-birth twin sisters connected by
long bungee cords on the astral plane.
You caught me repeating the name of the lost
dog on the poster. I reached into my bag
for my phone, and pulled out a Kit Kat.
The pile of mail has gotten too big to look at.
The FDNY shirt has too many holes to wear.
The astral plane has gotten too hard to navigate.
Too many places to see while I’m there.
The girl at MAC made my makeup look
like Amy Winehouse’s, so now I have her song
stuck in my head. And I keep singing it out loud in public,
which is stupid, ‘cause my makeup looks like hers.
Oh we miss you Amy. We miss you childhood.
We miss you parties. Miss you Tiffany Blue.
Working from home I take a “lunch break”
that involves me eating mac & cheese straight
from the pot. It makes a warm feeling traveling
down to my stomach. In high school I’d try to go
the whole day without eating. Then I tried being
the cool girl who knows she isn’t fat. I had a stack
of Seventeen magazines. A quart
of Phish Food ice cream. Smear of vanilla
lip gloss where my mouth should be. My whole horrible life
in front of me. A row of manila folders.
Some songs are called “The End.”
They make everything seem so definite.
On Janet's last day the 9th floor smelled like popcorn.
All the Merch girls had eyelashes like mermaids.
Now that Janet’s gone instead of chatting to her
when I'm angry I do crazy things in Photoshop
like make a picture of the tabletop builder landing page
and write “TABLETOPOCALYPSE” across it in dripping blood.
Not that I think the apocalypse will be bloody, or that I will be there.
Not that I even know how to use Photoshop.
Not like anyone would even get the joke except for Janet, or maybe Jay.
Josh said if the world was ending tomorrow,
we could go live with this project if we had to.
If aliens landed on the planet, said they were gonna blow it up.
My mom says her trainer says she doesn't eat enough,
and then she gets hungry and so she eats junk.
I made Janet a sign that said Interplanet Janet for her cubicle.
She was the only one that got it, and even she didn't really.
I made a name for the table with the swirling blue things on it.
Not like Janet is from outer space though technically she is an alien.
My mom says the red M&Ms are poison / I used to believe her.
I hold my arms up like a radio antennae.
Whale sounds come out of the receiver.
Bio
Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collection The Haunted House (Switchback, 2010), and the chapbook 8th Grade Hippie Chic (Immaculate Disciples, 2013). Her writing has appeared in Fanzine, The Hairpin, the Bitch blog and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Electric Gurlesque (Saturnalia, 2016) and The &NOW Awards 3: Best Innovative Writing (&NOW, 2015). She lives in Brooklyn, NY. marisacrawford.net