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the infinite options of gumball mechanisms.
by Eli Skipp
The sliding mechanism on this machine releases one wasp per nickel.
Nickel in, wasp out.
The wasps are angry and shaken from a journey down a corkscrew and
a life spent in a glass sphere, and they will sting you fiercely and
with vitriol. You will continue to purchase wasps because, though
angry, they are both beautiful and cheap, and because once stung you
can beg your sweetheart for sympathy.
You sweetheart is, however, unsympathetic and akin to your vespids you
are met with spewing – she has read this day your compatibility
horoscope and realized it is not meant to be.
In response she has begun screwing a man whose starsign better
complements hers: the kind of fellow who makes drums out of old
propane tanks and hands out rabbits like free candy and who knows
how to give head really, really well.
You comfort yourself by listing words that sound soft but mean
strong: firmament, fulcrum, shiv. You chew your nails in a fashion
that peels off the top layer of enamel. You sit in waiting by the
wasp machine for another customer, one with similar goals, but once
this happens you are unsure how to proceed. Do you:
a) approach her and sympathize, for you too have sought to be
stung?
b) interrupt, distract, save her from the toxins?
or c) wait your turn behind her and pay your fee and press your
swelling to her swelling, suck at the venom and pull it into your tongue,
steal all of her nickels?
You do none of these. The wasps, you discover, are parasitic, and their
babies eat their way into your brain. They first eat through your corpus
callosum, and you are two separate people, halved down the middle.
Next to be devoured is your left hemisphere, and you are immersed in the
euphoria of the present. Ecstatic, you endeavor to share the shine of a
consciousness sans past or future, but you are unable. Your left temporal
lobe is damaged beyond repair. You have forgotten language and in turn been
forgotten.
From your hollowed skull bursts forth a new generation of wasps. They are captured.
They are placed inside a machine. The sliding mechanism on this machine
releases one wasp per nickel. Nickel in, wasp out.
10/26/2010 Posted on 10/26/2010
Copyright © 2024 Eli Skipp
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Linda Fuller on 10/26/10 at 09:56 PM I absolutely love this - highest marks and into favorites. Had previously read your journal entry and enjoy seeing how this evolved and improved. Am reminded of two books: one, a favorite of mine, A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. $#%@ (the part about the corpus callosum); and The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, a disturbing book that I didn't particularly care for, but it stuck in my mind (parasitically). Again, kudos on this fine piece of writing. |
| Posted by Linda Fuller on 10/26/10 at 09:58 PM I can't believe D*I*C*K wasn't accepted. |
| Posted by V. Blake on 10/27/10 at 04:33 AM You are one of my favorite poets to read on here. Your poems are like none that I have ever seen anywhere else, and I am happy to have had the chance to love them. That aside, and just in case you care, the second line of the fourth stanza should probably read "complement," rather than "compliment." |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 10/27/10 at 04:35 PM Flawless, stunning poetic storytelling. There's not much else I can say except wow until I have some kind of asthma attack. Well done. |
| Posted by Stephan Anstey on 11/29/10 at 05:08 PM I really love this one Eli. |
| Posted by Nadia Gilbert Kent on 12/07/10 at 11:28 PM Really cool. |
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