TWO POEMS by KRISTIN GUSTAFSON

Too Long; Didn’t Read (1)

after Tara Hardy 

[in 45 words]

I know my attention span is fucked when two minutes is too long for a video. 

I follow the Reddit doctor’s orders, self-reflect, touch all the grass, 

bury my phone in my lover’s backyard,

wait three days for it to be reborn

as a vibrator. 


[in 16 words]

I bury my attention in my lover’s touch

long for minutes to be reborn as days


[in 6 words] 

fuck the grass, 

I touch myself


Too Long; Didn’t Read (2)

after Tara Hardy 

[in 89 words]

my childhood best friend’s computer was on the first floor

she didn’t have to traipse up flights of stairs

to feed her Neopets,

drown her cheating husbands in The Sims


we were twenty grubby digits desperate 

for the single mouse, control over the surf

we grew with the internet, marked our heights

on a Deviantart doorframe


she helped me set up my Webkinz account there

my father was livid when he found out I used my real birthdate, 

convinced I’d be a victim of identity theft at age eight


[in 9 words]

victim of the internet, 

I drown in the surf


Kristin Gustafson (she/her) is a poet, editor, and sentient ball of anxiety from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Her work has been published in HAD, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, and elsewhere. She is one of Literary Cleveland’s 2023-2024 Breakthrough Writing Residents. Instagram / Twitter

Previous
Previous

TWO POEMS by SILAS DENVER MELVIN

Next
Next

TWO POEMS by RACHEL REH