Salvageable Samantha Eppinger
Table of Contents Paramour in the California Drought……….………………………………………. 2 Helium Crisis………………………………………………………..…………………. 4 The Norwegian Butter Crisis……………………..…………………………………. 6 Nepal Earthquake: Facebook Relationship…………………….………...………. 8 Climate Change………………………………………………………………..………. 10 Catfish: College Debt Crisis………………………………...………………………. 12 Blue Collection……………………………………………………...…………………. 13 On the Cuban American Missile Crisis……………………………………………. 14 Doctor’s Love Poem to a Medicine Cabinet...……………………………………. 16 Downfall of the Straight White Male………………………………………….……. 18 Woman’s Suffrage……………………………………………………………….……. 20 Excessive Tea Drinker……………………………………………..…………………. 21 Natural Selection……………………………………………………….………………. 23 Salvageable……………...……………………………...………………………………. 25 A Quasi Romantic Story of the Apocalypse………………………………………. 26
Paramour in the California Drought 1. Bright sun glares down and tries to hold hands with my avocado tree. Humid pink air forms pockets under green leaves, oil slips down blistering into a glossy sheen. The leaves begin to shrivel— turning papery and uncomfortable bashful under the sun. I do not like the effects, but my avocado tree has fallen in love. 2. I’ve not been watered enough, and neither has my avocado tree who is trying to write love notes to the sun. Mummified leaves hold promise rings, cat ears, last week’s bio homework, and an empty coke bottle. They gather in a circle around the roots of my avocado tree. I pick the last leaf and author the perfect proposal. 3. I don’t know why the sun loves me more than my avocado tree, but I know this is my punishment. Branches hold up my small intestine. My liver is being coddled by roots, and my brain buried deep under the dry earth moistening dust. I’ve offered my body as camouflage. Dark pimpled black skins hang heavy from my ears, nose, eyes. I do not protest when my lungs are offered and eaten with fervor.
4. I sit atop my avocado tree and drop tangerine peels to the ground. The juice leaks from my hollow torso, sticky nectar bleeds into blood. The sun has set, taking all the fruit with it and now the sky holds no water. I trace the rings, count the tree’s days of submissive devotion, and bury the tangerine seeds in my rotted center.
Helium Crisis When Mother died, we sent her off in a flurry of green balloons. The shriveled bottoms of hand-sized balloons laughed as they disappeared to join their family. I held on to three purple orbs and waited for the helium to seep out plastic pores. We held vigil for Mother, in the living room. I marinated the chicken in salt water, while waiting for you— did you get the purple balloons I sent? But still the air was empty and stagnant filled with empty plates being smashed and the smell of wrinkle cream. You sent a condolence card saying, “stay grounded. Love, your husband,” and a picture of casket getting lowered into the grave. There is not enough coffee in my veins, and for the next three months I stumble are with blurry eyes and a headache, my mother’s high voice saying how dare you-hold your hand on date
nights. obsess over Valentine’s Day. give you flowers instead of her. She won’t stop crying until the day your mother-There is no more helium for your mother’s funeral. I attend in somber dress, black, with a red hat and purple gloves. You say my gloves aren’t funny, show some respect, and refused to bury her body. I sit by you as you clutch your mother’s skeleton hands for years. Letting her moldy skin collect on the kitchen table, remembering to brush her scalp before work. At dinner one day, you told me, you sold her to a new company that turned bones into helium and smiled so large I could almost see your lungs.
The Norwegian Butter Crisis It costs a penny per minute to be with you. Laying on your bed, phone playing music meant for other lovers dancing crowns over our ears. It is content and I can smell forgotten cookies drifting up from the basement. It costs a dollar per minute to be with you stashed in a shopping cart, sunk at the bottom of a lake. The local boys go swimming around us. You ask if we can take one home. It costs twenty dollars per minute. I take you out to the park, let autumn wind laugh at me and write poems for you in leaves about butter and the transient nature of cheese. It costs sixty five dollars per minute to be with you, and I am nearly broke. I convinced a buddy of mine to become a ragged mutt, because I know how lonely you get. I pour all my morning coffee onto buttercups, and etch cents into pebbles. It costs seventy one dollars per minute. I propose to you with a stick of butter just in time for the holidays, and hope that you won’t forget the presents for my family. Lisa is offering 30 free seconds with you every time I skate a figure eight in the fish pond. It may seem inconsequential, so much kinetic energy for fragments— but with prices so high, I’d draw lines in pastures all day. You say it costs eighty three dollars per hour spent with you. I tell you, I won’t
pay any longer, because I do not crave your company. You hold seconds on your fingers, like glass rings, stacked high. They begin falling off, becoming dust on the sidewalk. You hold your hands out as compensation. I thank you, slip them in my backpack, and return to the vikings.
Nepal Earthquake: Facebook Relationship Their relationship was beautiful, a graceful tightrope act. String strung tight between the poles of the hightop. Balancing, arms tossing flowers and concrete temples in circles. We constantly hold our breath, a perpetual inhale, and pray to the gods of Nepal, that the woven rope won’t snap and leave everyone dead. We admired the constant bombardment of love, projected to the audience from virtual programs, no wedding invitation needed, no vows taken, we all knew how carnival promises end. No one was surprised when the earth began to laugh how naïve. We had grown tired of the circus, found the petting zoo more intriguing. Decided they were versed in the placement of feet and upholding fragile things. We didn’t look as the tent collapsed. Broken glass surrounded
the temples. Camped out under tarps we couldn’t shield ourselves from the snap. Constantly bombarded with jagged edges of tightrope shattered from constant force. The sound of their bodies hitting the ground would not stop echoing.
Climate Change Speaks After White Fetish by Dark Matter I have a confession: I love being ignored, The way their eyes just glance right through me, it’s exhilarating. I’ve had this thing for a while now, where I reach deep deep into the landfills and pull out all the trash signed with their scent. I collect it. I mold it into chairs and books. I turn in research papers written on the back of empty oreo boxes and lick the lids of their peach cans for fermenting sweetness makes me think of them in gym class. I love the way I can read over their shoulder and they never stop me. Sometimes I think they like the attention. How I can snip their hair, draw statistically accurate graphs on the back of their neck and how they don’t notice. Like, it really just makes my decade. Their friends warn them that I’m lurking under their seat just keeping it warm for them and I love the way that makes them laugh. sometimes I even think about stealing their vocal chords
and making a piano that would contort their voice all day, make them admit I am their fate. I love how they’ll argue with their friends. I want to hold their hand and go, Oh, tell me more. I want to camp outside their window, let dew solidify on my jeans and wait for their mislead theories to float down from the kitchen window slide off evergreen leaves and trip into my tape recorder. I hold their hand while the green of night dwindles to black, feel my hand gets warmer and begins to sweat until the perspiration becomes uncomfortable. I envelope them in my cardigan, wrap my arms around their sleeping form and begin to squeeze until it all becomes too hot and they awake with a scream— still not seeing me— together we crescendo into the sun.
Catfished: College Debt Crisis With numbers like these, it is becoming clear that innovative approaches are desperately needed. They will treasure this forever; the day they married their careers. They have traded in naked bodies for diplomas, happy to know that something loves them. No one could love them as much as their University “Where is your heart?” “Give it to me.” Now society has a problem of naked and heartless children running across media website shouting that they were lied to. There was no secret education not already on the internet, no jobs in their major no difference in the pay no one who loved them. Thief unmasked, they fled into the streets streaking messages across the sidewalk in chalk. Writing, “don’t trust the man he lies. Don’t give your heart to him. He isn’t who you think.“
Blue Collection Blue starts off slow and is pocketing your brain and holds hands with your throat. Blue held gazes with— Blue didn’t like hands or feet— Blue always walked too— Blue held boys down in dark bedrooms, under blankets licked tears from napkins. Blue embraced water; dissolved cigarettes buds. Fresh addictions wash over. Blue. Mood arises. Universal wonderings leave large depressions. Blue reflects harmless. Don’t break character. Hold your truest. Don’t be blue.
On the Cuban American Missile Crisis He didn’t give her anything for Christmas but a cargo hat with a star etched in the center. She didn’t give him a present. instead scoffed at the red token, called it ugly, and knitted a replacement. She gave a present to his best friend; a chocolate covered fig dripping with perfumed liquor. They went on dates, she and his best friend to midnight movies, where they wore matching gold rings, and finished each morning with walks through abandoned neighbor’s houses. He grew jealous, saw images of them kissing in carnival mirrors, tore down the glass. Red hands seeping threats through hotlines to the heart, yelling “this is code gold.” But when, the fragmented crystal settled, there was nothing but a black void. said he knew they were— said he knew they almost were kissing in decomposing kitchens. Said he had a weapon that could destroy her, and since her weapons were already in place— hell yes he planned to use it—
it would break her the way only twist romance could. They went on dates, him and her neighbor, made rice and beans with the kitchen window open and the music left imprints on snow. She grew jealous, raving that her boyfriend didn’t love her. Purchasing ice-cream and fireworks, she told him, she would never let him survive this. Together they spent nights in abandoned houses that were weeping ceiling tiles and support beams. With the windows open they gazed, poised to kiss their dates.
Doctor’s Love Poem to a Medicine Cabinet He cried, “Why don’t you love me baby?” Ran his hands over his thinning hair in the sterile white room, and fell to the floor in desperation. Ran his hands over his thinning words, poems he carved into patient’s charts. Fell to the floor in desperation. He was a workaholic overtaken with love. The poems he carved into patient’s charts never had happy endings. He was a workaholic overtaken with love, love for a silent coworker. But never to have happy endings office romances rarely end well. Especially for a lovely silent coworker. Especially when she need fixing. Office romances rarely end well he’d tell himself on repeat. Especially when she need fixing from the piles of pills, purple, pink, bottles popped open. He’d tell himself on repeat that she’d get better from the piles of pills, purple, pink, bottles popped open and consumed by her. She’d never get better. She’s an addict. And it consumed her every day until she was lifeless. She’s an addict who spends every day emptying herself until she is lifeless,
gutted pristine shelves hold nothing but Purell. He spent every day emptying her. He says, “Why don’t you love me baby?” His voice gutted, pristine. Holds nothing but Purell, and love for a silent coworker.
The Downfall of the Straight White Male My wife is getting rocks out of the garden. We will use them tonight to christen our new cabinet, It is too sleek, holds no character. Character is now trending. My neighbor’s wife joins us for the christening. I throw stones at the cabinet. They begin sticking bandages across cracks; adhesive melding with carvings. She tells me to get a beer. That I am useless here, because I am not versed in the mending of splintered bodies. When they finish, they bandage the scars across their breasts, and go out to celebrate. I watch my favorite old movie, about a guy who is plain and handsome and employed. Tells his wife that she is okay, even if she’s a little broken, and buys her necklaces to hide the band-aids, and eats white toast for breakfast. My wife comes back, with vagabonds picked up at the bar. Bare chested
they show off their scars, long twisted lines, they waltz around my living room; admire the damaged cabinet, and proclaim it whole. I ask my wife to give me her bandages, ask if I can try them on, maybe wear them to job interviews and parties as a talking point. But she said they were hers and to get some manners, and that I was lucky she loves me. But that night I had to see, I just had to see what being whole means nowadays. I peeled the adhesive back, taped it to my heart and fell asleep with my hand over her scars.
Woman’s Suffrage I watched entranced as my voice floats to the ground and crawl under a rotting metal hull of a canoe. I watch the slow rust scratch— a hole eaten away. From my window I could see my voice had sprouted roots, entombing pastel dyed stars and it budded with red mouths. They squawked until he came. He looked up bursting eyes, insane. The voice, intrusive to all known. He took a shovel, sharpened the edge— blood bulging out tendrils, sparse stems. Broken words imbruing soil. They turn the dirt maroon, roots drunk with savage ardor, it morphs mud into a creature. Wet with blood, riddled with rusted holes It curries down deep, and patiently waits for soon.
Excessive Tea Drinker Warning: Excessive tea-drinking may be hazardous to your health. Similar to everything– tea is deadly. You may not know it but the black tea that seeps heavy in your tissue lining is filled with fluoride industrial strength. Your stomach sloshes against the seams of your skin almost constantly. You can’t stop saying how bloated you are, how full you are, but some insist that you need more water you’re just dehydrated sweetheart. Fluoride drank daily scrubs your bones clean digging deep chipping away at all your protective layers ‘til it hits a nerve when you consume iced tea 100 to 150 bags a day you may experience some skeletal pains, but do not worry—that is expected. And judgment, held hot on the tongue, burns off your taste buds. Finally, when you try to stand up and walk away from the pitcher— your bones will snap and all the tea will spill out.
Natural Selection We will never run out of ways to inundate the salmon population. We change their feeding patterns send rebels to be regurgitated by turbines. We hold up decapitated heads, say we wouldn’t do this to you. you just need to-why aren’t you moving on? I remember reading an article about how salmon have begun altering primitive behaviors, to not get caught by shoreline areas. I’ve stopped believing them. For instance, the salmon have changed. They’ve stopped swimming into stilled waters, letting the sun slowly cook their gills. Until seals eat their unspawned stomachs. Introducing: farmed-bred salmon. A solution to all problems. Convinced it was all the same. We hold up charts that show how everything is dynamite. How no one has dropped the match. We hope that the native population won’t notice the fullness of the stream, We don’t notice how the streams stay empty, our implants rejected. throughout the emptiness of extinction.
Salvageable Laced vines crocheted into a tea cozy hold up our house. I meet you in the kitchen and ask if you like the bones of our rotting house. The shadows are growing between us and I remember to water them daily. I hope that someday they expand monstrously and consume our house. You’ve aquired bar stools as support beams for the corners. You say the foundation is solid, but the basement should have been the end to our house. It seems mundane to be intimidated into submission by a locked door. And yet I cannot leave, cannot break the rotting wooden doors of this house. The roof is leaking and you wash my skin with brown tap water. You say we should abandon this, and yet we stay washed up in this saturated house.
A Quasi Romantic Story of the Apocalypse the sky fell a little bit closer last wednesday. i held my coffee cup close to my heart, prayed we would be safe. the steam gathered into condensation pulling heavy on eyelashes. criss-crossed tubes interwoven into a stiff sheet quickly closed the gaps of blue, all was gray and you laughed at it, saying how unoriginal— a quilt. but the tubes held breath, gathered from sleeping children some spoiled, perspiration accumulated in drops tasting sour on the tongue. some silver, clean and turning in romantic waltzes offering penance for not being blue enough. you thumbed the silver off your cross exposing oxidized iron. my stomach, caught in gears— folded, water building up pressure and screeching your roof became drenched with sweat and tea. the sky blanketed our bodies, levitated us closer to space where our ears rang peacefully with the silence. the world was in anaphylactic shock, we ripped through the tubes
caused a tear where teardrops of words scrambled to liberate themselves. watched citizens turn blue hues from screaming words meant to foam over mouths in fits of rage, you celebrated the freeness. saying it is was cleansing of all the evil. You taunted them for being so stupid— as the world became a monochromatic scribble, pulled me closer under the blanket and asked if i wanted more coffee.