Poop

shhh.

~

they are mistaking me for art.

~

don’t give me away.

~

they don’t know

i am full of poop.

~

not metaphorical poop.

~

not the expensive kind

printed in a catalogue

beside words like rupture, body, witness.

~

actual poop.

~

coward poop.

panic poop.

please-love-me poop.

years of trying to become special

compressed into one warm little philosophy.

~

i am sitting here

on a clean white cube

with my legs crossed

like i have defeated mortality,

~

but inside

~

i am just a small frightened thing

playing with my own poop

and laughing every time it pops.

~

pop.

~

there.

~

that was the thesis.

~

that was the grant application.

~

that was the divine feminine

having a minor bathroom incident

under museum lighting.

~

don’t tell them

i haven’t solved anything.

~

don’t tell them

i am mostly decoration

wrapped around a fear response.

~

don’t tell them

i am terrified

that all this noise

will die with me,

~

or worse,

~

that it will die

while i am still alive,

~

and i will have to keep breathing

beside the corpse of my own importance.

~

and one day i will look down

at the whole sacred pile

of my precious years

~

and whisper,

~

oh.

~

so that was it.

~

that was the poop.

.