THREE POEMS by MALLORY PAYNE

roach motel // bug mind palace

i got a bug mind palace

crashing around

my terrarium-cranium

i don’t know

where EYE begin and

the creepy-crawlies end.

i got daddy-long legs in armani suits

manning the front(al cortex) desk.

i might be a spider too. a tarantula

with prickly leg hair that grows too fast.

we run a roach motel on trashy euro-pop

and whiskey redbull gas cans

that self-ignite

and burn the whole fucking place

down every full moon.

we don’t mind.

we get wasted on the fumes

and riot around my sluggy cerebellum

until the motel is nothing but ash in an empty skull.


#111 tableaux (repressed aCID tRIp)

make sacrifices on the altar

of ANTI-sentimentality

of the ANTIchrist

for a (TAB)leaux of acid

to trip in the cemetery, to breathe in the gentle

smell of blonde eyebrows

of red-gold pinions

that kaleidoscope into

fun home // freak mirrors

with mounted antlers where

my eyes should be

the deer are

strange here

they lick their teeth

clean of consumptive blood

sourced straight

from the lungs of a dead god

in the parabolic loop

the refrigerator magnets are

an unrhymed tercet and a silent one line refrain

in a semi-circle

who cares anyway?

the cannibal stag gives me

one more (TAB)leaux

i go back to where i belong

because only so much time is allowed per TAB


#888 polyptych (semi-conscious memories of a fun house)

in the next room,

funhouse mirrors propagate

like bacterium from the wall

escaping binary fusion with the gray matter

of a polyptych painting hanging in

empty hallways begging to be defiled

THERE IS NO ONE ELSE IN THE FUN HOME

THERE ARE ONLY 888 IMAGES OF THE SELF


haunted mirrored effigies

like specters with broken spine

images of the selftrip//polytrip

burn like phosphorous

festering like hysteria, 888 selves

TEAR OUT THEIR HAIR INTO THE TOLIET

the

clumps

are flushed

in the

acidbowl


Mallory Payne (she/they) is an annoying graduate student and poet based in Washington, D.C. In her free time, she enjoys hanging out with her cat, Worm, and watching art films. Their work has found a home or is forthcoming in Bullshit Lit, HAD, Eco Punk Literary, Hellmouth Press, and Bleach! Magazine. They can be found lurking on the internet on X @paynemal_

Previous
Previous

FOUR POEMS by BEE LB

Next
Next

A POEM by OWEN PAUL EDWARDS