Three Poems by Holly Deer

on its cost

when i was in college the man who wrote my favorite comic book said you have to live even if it's for something stupid. even if it's for something nobody but you cares about. i was drunk at the time and i stayed drunk for a while but i was haunted by his story of a friend climbing bloody from the bathtub and i took his advice. i stayed up, up, cheap poison diluting sugar free sports drinks, filling my hard drive with chores, making a list in my head of all the things i get to do before i kill myself as if this will motivate me to to do them.

a comic book costs eight dollars. a comic book is available online for free if you dodge slurs while you hunt for it. purchasing a comic book from your local store does not tell the company you want more of that comic book. the webcomic collections my sister boguht me for my birthday escalate in price. that which is old is either made new or made scarce, made valuable, assigned a number.

i scroll facebook marketplace idly for video games and wonder if the girl who raped me in high school knows that her copy of coraline for the nintendo ds goes for a cool two hundred and fifty dollars now. i could use two hundred and fifty dollars and a copy of coraline for the nintendo ds is sort of the least she could do if you think about it. i might not even sell it, i think, and then i remember neil gaiman wrote coraline, and i decide i could really go for two hundred and fifty fucking dollars, and it's sort of the least she could fucking do if you really think about it.

i walk past the alcohol at my local grocery store. i stop reading comic books. i go to my friendly local video game store and i pick up the copy of haunting ground for the playstation two they keep behind glass and i pretend for a brief moment i am someone very different who is about to be very happy.

I DONT THINK IT'S TRUE WHAT THEY SAY

i don't think they're lying per se but i observe what goes up and it does not always come down. i don't think they intend to deceive but i don't think the kids are alright. i think there's something seriously wrong with them and pretending there isn't won't save them.

i think the grass is not always greener on the other side and i think time does not heal all wounds. i think karma is a great wheel and you and i were broken upon it a long time ago. i think our essence greasues the cogs for those who come next, and we look up at them from the blood gutters like frogs all bulge-eyed and gasping.

i think the straw did not break the camels back but her back remains broken, poor thing. i think that perhaps all will not be well. i think we will need to crawl through the desert for much more than one hundred days repenting. i think we have not even begun to fucking crawl.

i think the fire does much more than burn. i think the best guide to the territory is not a map or the territory itself but the company of someone who has lived and loved there. i think if you can't see a place through eyes of love you shouldn't bother looking at all. i think this will all still be here in one trillion years, or else it will be dust, and the dust will still be here.

i think my wife will live forever. i think our descendents will meet our ancestors on the bridge to heaven and the young will say 'didn't they do their best' and the old ones will say 'yes. they did.' and the old will say 'wasn't it enough?' and the children will say 'no. it wasn't.' my wife will say nothing, because she will still be ablive. i think that none of this will be over soon. i think it will not be soon at all.

assessment and instructions

if you cough too much your rib can slip out of place
and at some point i made the decision either conscious or
unconscious that i was going to cough every day.
my pancreas died in my belly when i was nine or ten
my rib slides slowly back into place
when i find i must wrack my body like a shotgun
i try to do it gently.

when i fall apart do not forget: send my pieces to the unified
headquarters of those girlies on youtube who restore old dolls.
like the my little pony ones from the 90s that were a little bit ugly
on the shelf and time and love have been exceptionally cruel to.
if she (plural) can not through acetone sandpaper and other dark
magicks bring me at last into my proper assemblage then
perhaps my nephew. he is approaching seven. i hear he has
advanced significantly in the art of building that which is
compatible with all major brands.

Holly Deer is a rejected digitigrade Christmas mascot for fat girls haunting an abandoned factory in small town Ohio. Her work can be found on her instagram @h0llydeer and occasionally elsewhere.