FOUR POEMS by SUSANA RODRIGUEZ
the summer i had my first kiss
was also the same summer
i stopped believing in god
discovered kurt cobain & h.p. lovecraft
realized i am not quite bisexual
but something else i don’t yet
know the word for
slept in the same bed as the opposite gender
while bleeding through the sheets
googled free porn in a non-private tab
pretended to take showers when
i was really masturbating
had my first orgasm by spreading
my legs under the water pressure
learned that men are always
straightforward about what they like
prepared myself for eighth grade
i can’t believe it’s been ten years
just let me have my silly little drinks, okay?
i love waking up
when the first thing
on my to-do list is
drink a strawberry
redbull oh how it
puts me in the mood
to stay in a state
of delusion all day long
i can’t stress this enough
my mind is just rainbows
and meadows but when
i dream it’s darkness
and rape and backstabbing
and watching the man
i love love another woman
so it really doesn’t help
when you tell me
i should drink more water
because you wouldn’t want
to just drink something pure
if you lived in reality 24/7
you’d probably be on
the road to killing yourself
just like me
she’s done all she can
she watches perfect blue at least once a week
just to feel something
bruises miraculously appear on knees and thighs
hair always looks fabulous
not a strand out of place
while being unwashed
clothes are too tight
cutting off blood circulation
waist is a size twenty-five
for breakfast just a black coffee
with one sugar
gets out of bed at four p.m.
hates herself but marks X’s
on the portraits of her pimply peers
like she never shopped at k-mart
when times were tough
stuffs her high school yearbooks
under the mattress along with expired
bottles of antidepressants
crumpled and snotty tissues litter
her bedroom floor
as well as dirty laundry
and plastic bags from target and forever 21
better here than the fucking ocean
she’s only twenty-one and believes
her life is already over
she posts about her two dimes
and a penny life crisis on three
different social media sites
and waits for the likes to pour in
thinking she can feel it in her veins
then pops a seroquel
with a diet pepsi
and passes out
lonely is the girl who reads outside
stretched out on a blanket in the grass / at the park when the weather is nice / cool breeze / legs in
the air / with a paperback just begging / to be noticed // the mexicans are on their lunch break /
it’s been three hours since it started / getting drunk on a friday afternoon / while the sun is at its
peak // meanwhile i’m day dreaming / of being fucked / by a city worker in uniform / while
reading toni morrison / ants chomping away at my thighs / gnats crawling into the crevices / of
my breasts // the tree above is a mother / crying tears of joy and stress / simultaneously /
providing air to breathe / while i scream on the inside / and out
Susana Rodriguez is a writer from Chino, California. Her poetry has been featured in Rejection Letters, Delicate Friend, JAKE, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram @thekoolaidqueen.