KELSEY MARIE HARRIS

Self fertilization is a poor strategy for long term survival

I don't know how to be a person, but I try really hard everyday. I can't tell if I have empathy, or if I've learned how to mimic feeling. I'm not sure if I have memories, or if I'm using context clues. Sometimes I cry because I want to and can't. Sometimes I think God made me in a manic state. Sometimes I think when God made me, he was late for something. People believe in me like Jesus. Which is to say, they don’t . You follow me to the end of the flat earth and fall off. I keep going, because it's round. I fall and scrape my knee, it's bleeding. It's trending blood. This is America, Ferrera. Low key, we'd all fuck Ugly Betty. I'm your beautiful daddy. The world's my deadbeat child. I'm preaching to the choir, no one is listening. They are busy singing, at my face. It's aggressive. I talk by not talking. I crip walk on water. I smile, bitch. I beat life, and now I'm sleepy. I bicycle past your dilapidated house. You are sad, but I am happy because I am biking. The bright ribbons on my basket make me feel so alpha male. My hot tongue melts a hole in the center of my Cookies N’ Cream ice cream. I push it in and out. I pretend I’m Dalmatian sex. These are things I know. The song “On Top of Spaghetti is a metaphor for losing your virginity. Feet are just weird leg hands. Kwik Trip coffee makes me shit like I’m dying. Mildew tastes like pink frosting. When God has an orgasm, a poet gets a brand-new thought, and a baby angel gets its wings with extra blue cheese. If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish, he will probably still use DoorDash.

Kelsey Marie Harris writes poetry, I guess. Her chapbook, The Jolly Queef, was recently published by Vegetarian Alcoholic Press. She has also had work published in The Rust Mill, TLDR magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Forklift Ohio. Kelsey, and her poetry, are usually uncomfortable. Most of her work is fueled from self loathing, anxiety, filthy thoughts, and ironically, a secret kind of prudishness. Your mother probably won't be thrilled about any of it. But that's ok.