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_.