[ORGANISM]
I woke up with an antenna growing out of my pineal gland
is this the apocalypse yet
am I drunk off the blades of grass I’ve been chewing on
my horse refuses to wear a saddle
& my eyes are two dreams trying to become lucid
everything is one big organism
I am consumed by fire
if life gives you lemons
squirt them into your eyes
[HOW COME ALL THESE OBJECTS ARE FROM THE PAST]
I think what I like about my typewriter
is that I don’t have to plug it in
logic is only real when shared
isn’t it weird that tangibly the past doesn’t exist
the present’s only tangible
how come all these objects are from the past
I’m gonna stick my computer in the freezer
till it stops working
I’m gonna brush my teeth till they’re bloody
these things mean nothing to me
they are everything
I guess when I see myself as an ant
I can then proceed to build my fortress
when the part of me that can’t speak
sits with its hands in its pocket
like a boy waiting for the bus
maybe sincerity is the most challenging way to live
maybe it’s the simplest
something about the fact I can look at my face
in the mirror
for long periods of time
disturbs me
when I paint the inside of my skull
as if it were an ancient cave
I will find answers
cleverness can only go so far
I sat under every chair in my house
finding different
meanings
of
com-
fort
there’s no such thing
as no such thing
I apply the scientific method
to the scientific method
when I discovered my tongue
I cut it out
& carried it around like a holy relic
whatever you can imagine is real
Matthew Sherling lives in San Francisco, where he likes to create things. He runs the interview blog Cutty Spot & the e-magazine Gesture. Among other places, his work appears or is upcoming in The Columbia Review, The Believer, Thought Catalog, Fanzine, The Lit Pub, BIRP!, NAP, & Have U Seen My Whale. He released a mini-chapbook called [WHAT] in April 2012.