Doll Fingers with Bloody Scrap Metal Nails
I’ve had enough of your lighthearted positivity.
There’s nothing light about this.
Nothing light about
four or more years of dismantled life.
More missing fingers, broken off and hidden.
My middle finger is still intact for now.
Invasive Glimmers
Maybe it only existed inside my mind
was trying to convince me I was crazy.
Maybe it had rapidly crawled into my third eye.
Maybe it was pretending to be a tiny shooting star
but it was really a giant house centipede
looking for a crack in my frame.
Staring at me and preparing to leap
into my bathtub and that’s why my drain
is always clogged. As soon as I shut my eyes,
those eyes might become invaded so I try not
to shut them until I’m about to fall asleep.
When I finally shut my eyes they still glimmer
like an impending mini-seizure or like I’m smothering
a centipede with my pillow, but then it is back on top
of the ceiling. Then it is stuck and dangling
down from an invisible web, trying to escape.
Juliet Cook‘s poetry has appeared in many print and online publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, recently including red flames burning out (Grey Book Press, 2023), Contorted Doom Conveyor (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), Your Mouth is Moving Backwards (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), and REVOLTING (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024). She has another new chapbook, Blue Stingers Instead of Wings forthcoming from Pure Sleeze Press in Spring 2025. Her most recent full-length poetry book, Malformed Confetti was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.
