Nintendo 64

Everyone I know is having babies
        or getting really, really into rock climbing.        Me?
I’m drinking fruit punch Capri Suns        upside down on my couch.
        I am just dumb luck.         An exercise in
                cruel misfortune. I’m fruit-shaped earrings
        and no room for dreaming.         I have been so many nouns.
My boyfriend says                         I’m a pufferfish.         ​My friends,
                a lady praying mantis,
        but I can’t track the metaphor.
My brain is an overheated Nintendo 64        and I’m just
        frantically blowing into the cartridges.
Do you think my Webkinz miss me?        Do you think Dr. Quack
                        is mending their broken hearts?
My prefrontal cortex is finally fully developed.         So says
        the internet,         yet I’m still embarrassing myself
in a hundred different ways a day.         The most embarrassing thing
        about me         is whatever I did 12 minutes ago
and the 12 minutes before that                 (and the 12 minutes before that).
I still have time to be good                 so right now, can I
                at least be interesting?
        This is me when the moon becomes
                just a shiver in the sky.         I’m into planners
and multi-colored highlighters.         What scares me the most
        is that        if my dog had thumbs he’d definitely be
forklift certified by now.         He’d get in my car and ravage
the nearest supermarket.                 I think thesaurus.com
is my best friend.                 Wikipedia is my lover.
        This is me        when the moon is huge and pockmarked
                and wanting. I am lying on the floor
counting shapes in the ceiling.         I’m missing men with beards
        and state fair hotdogs. Maybe I just need a nap.
My new phone’s                facial recognition software
        doesn’t recognize me when I’m wearing glasses
                or crying.                 I know depression is hereditary
because all of my cousins         have the same nose and sadness as me,
        except for the ones who got rhinoplasties         or lobotomies.
The earth shaking like a fist.         The moon finally getting its revenge.
                Jawbones and gooseflesh,
and god, what an eyesore.                 I still have time to be good
        but god, I don’t know how.
I am away from my desk at the moment.                 Please leave
        ​a detailed message and I will call you back.

Back to: Issue Ten

Next: Smile Ximai Jiang

Wanda Deglane (she/her) is a poet and therapist. She is the author of multiple poetry chapbooks and collections, including Bittersweet (VA Press, 2019), Honey-Laced Garbage Dreams (Ghost City Press' Summer 2019 Microchap Series), Venus in Bloom (Porkbelly Press, 2020), and Melancholia (VA Press, 2021). She lives in Arizona with her beloved sidekick, an orange cat named Nico.