issue 03

Issue 03 · poem 5

Soul-sorrow recycle bin

Is it stuck to my head?

No-

I’ve looked everywhere.

There must be a sticker somewhere.

I can’t find it.

And yet

people seem to think

I’m their

soul-sorrow recycle bin.

They come

with styrofoam sighs,

empty bottles of gin,

shed plastic skin.

They leave with lighter weight

yet I have no collection day

for their toxic waste.

It sits, corroding the edges of my mind-

until

nothing feels like mine.

No exchange. Just take. take. take.

Where’s that sticker that says

I’m the place

to discard your dead decay?

Did I stick it on by standing still too long?

I need to find that label,

peel it clean from my skin.

I was never meant to be -

a soul-sorrow recycle bin.