Time Well Wasted
Brandyce Ingram
I keep staring at one thing without seeing it.
I woke up like this:
brick-skinned to the scenery
reinforced concrete eyes
lost in the nada-sphere
and in lust with the psychotears
yet to flood without knowing why.
How much time has passed?
How to live well in wasted time?
And I assume everyone else is out
saving kittens
punching nazis
MotherfuckinTeresa-ing
24/7
instead of:
sitting
drinking tea
sucking cancer smoke
contemplating the necessity of a coffin
and scribbling thoughts no one will ever read
(or care to) in my flayed blue robe.
Because there are better beings to be saved and seen.
Because that one thing is all I need to know I exist.
Dating Like We Don’t Care
Brandyce Ingram
You wank off to hollywood surnames–
like they mean something.
“ILikeApples.ApplesArePrettierThanOranges.”
Blahblahbrownspeak–
don’t you talk pretty to me.
How can I be more charming than yesterday?
How can I better fake you with my mask?
You answer with glittery eyes,
entranced in all the bullshit I leak
from my lil lovemelovemedeargodlovemerightnow lips.
And isn’t it cute?
This stupid game we play?
I’m on a date with my own disdain–
been steady for a while now.
We’ll make it–
and you’ll take my stupid name
because hatred is a long-term relationship.
I, warrior
Brandyce Ingram
I, warrior of a dying art.
Upon waking, I inquire:
Who needs to cry today?
My power lies in cultivating sorrow–
holding up a
spattered
sad
mirror
to the masses
who wear
easy smiles.
They cannot see their bleeding teeth
nor the patchwork beneath,
for this is a fearsome breed–
running
always running–
from that __blank-“who”-space__
they are
toward the next __“who”-dom__
they are not.
Only those who take the warrior’s dare
to peel back the
comfy
mask
are rewarded
with the grace
to see
their pain
is not their own.
How kind of me.
///
Brandyce Ingram is a writer, tutor, and jazz-head in Austin, Texas. Her written musings have appeared in The Austin Chronicle, The Esthetic Apostle (Chicago, IL), Sand Hills Literary Magazine (Augusta, GA), The Northern Cross (San Francisco, CA), and Cathexis Northwest Press. She prefers questions over answers, quantum chaos over order, and cats.