a study in self-synthesis

Kathie Wu

 loving you is like shaking

a mason jar of oil (castor

and extra virgin olive and

a dash from my t-zone)

with water and

         calling it homogeneity

                                  it’s all in the elbows

         on tuesdays i choose my skin

    from the footnotes

of a recipe for a collision:

the suggestion of a stop sign, and

that person on my timeline

who, in grappling dysphoria

              sketches their own corpse

                           yet someone has thrown

                                         this artistry of self-cadaverization

                                   to the ever-ravenous strays of Pinterest

                   where it is bastardized a thousand times over

               by a generative paintbrush

        in four weeks it washes up

   on the shores of the mainstream

to avoid trend conformity i lather on

benzoyl peroxide till i’m scrubbed raw

enough for the drawing board again

      for what is more embarrassing

          than exposing the sweat of

                        staying in line

      in choosing ammunition for

personal statement via black out poetry

i am the big bang without the theoreticals

 for my english degree locks eyes

  with “metaphysical” and decides

                 this is a word big enough to prove its own worth

                             i’ve used it seventeen times across my resume

                         perhaps my overqualification intimidates

      in a programming lesson we are told of

   no such thing as true randomness

 there is a nakedness to a tangent

the way it dutifully falls back in step

  with a thousand prior conversations about you

        i rename my poetry folder: verse

                   to filch religious fervor: psalms one, verse one…

                                                                                          one palms

                                                                                      at their own substance

                                                                                   through a layer of denim

                            finds lore in loose threads and camel toe polyester

                        for god so loved the world

     on the train a woman tells sardine rows

  of passengers pretending not to listen

i’m going to outer space next week

perhaps i will be breathing her, patchwork-quilt-style,

fill-in-the-blank-style, i’m-feeling-lucky-style,

phone-a-friend-style,

  by the time she is gone