born cyanide

i was born the year of the DVR ask me what happened on february sixth two thousand and sixteen then crack my jaw backwards into an open bowl use my incisors as a play button watch as i give back every piece of dialogue like a jack- in-the-box over and over i’ll jump i swear as eagerly as i can up through the top like a birthday cake surprise tell you everything i’ve ever been and all the things i want to be until you pity how i jump toward heaven seven times a day to be shoved back eight i think i must have been something bad in a past life, must have been calibrated and chemical, born cyanide in an envelope like karma’s wet dream making me into the underside of a bridge painted and repainted my hip bones and my pelvis arched in a horseshoe giving shelter to kids with cotton mouth or anyone willing to step into the shade to see the cyclic carnage of my new bleeding beautiful paint i can tell the story over and over again but not unless someone strips me bare every single time i think maybe in my next life i will be valiant and bold, be the nozzle of the spray can frothing at the mouth and staining everything i touch and when i finally wash from wicked walls i will sink into the ground and poison the evil earth forever.

Mac Chandler is a Creative Writing major at The University of The Arts in Philadelphia. Now, she resides in the greater Philadelphia area, studying, reading, and writing poetry and short fiction. You can find more of her work on her website, macchandlerpoetry.com

"born cyanide" is a stream of conscience styled fuck you to PTSD and the struggle of constant repetitive memory, and how it relates to four concrete objects (literal concrete in the last one). It also involves themes of karmic balancing and unwillingness to repent for evil doings that must have led to the suffering of this life.