Dinosaur Bees

Tired, Hungry, Dirty
Alexis Pope

You are one of these three things. You are not the mouse they caught under the kitchen sink or the air mattress that keeps deflating. There is never a good time to tell the truth when it feels less like the truth and more like the wrong answer on a final exam. It ran longer that expected. You did not pass but are unsure whether or not that is a good thing. The answers never feel like the right ones. You are not a baby but instead an eggplant. There is no bubble to fill in when all the exams are computer based. I was reading on my phone while driving and I started crying. I rear-ended the Mega Bus in front of me. The driver told me it was illegal to do what I was doing but I didn’t know what that was. There is no way the results were correct. There is no way to get out of this without a stitch or two. Maybe some topical ointment and a Band-Aid would make this less trying.

Fact: Your failure may be permanent. Fact: Your pencil was not a number two. Fact: You didn’t need a pencil. Fact: The car needs some major bodywork. Myth: Our bodies never touched. Myth: You didn’t like it when I touched you. Myth: You have never been in my trunk.

It’s almost cold enough for gloves and stuff, but in the hallway you won’t need them. In the exam room you might. In my trunk most definitely. It gets drafty in there. The season only changes if you let it. If you are okay with letting go dial 9-1-1 and scream into the receiver. When they arrive tell them you stubbed your toe on the mailbox. The mailbox looks better on the ground. If the world ends while we’re on it we won’t remember what it felt like. All of our memories have been returned with the Netflix. We send texts instead of speaking. We write words because it’s all we have left.

ALEXIS POPE lives in Ohio. She promises not to die there. Evidence of her existence can be found in PANK, >kill author, TRNSFR, Requited, Red Lightbulbs, and elsewhere.

Collin Blair Grabarek ::	Speak One Way

Karen Greenbaum-Maya ::	Raksasa: The Deer-Pig

Amanda Ackerman ::	Human Time: Poem Eight, Self-Pity

Kyle Hemmings ::	Miss tHing, I Think I Love You

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming ::	How Can You Understand?

Suzanne Marie Hopcroft ::	If You Can(’t) Take the Heat, Get Out of the Sit-In
	Rocket Man

Peter Schwartz ::	Uncle Shorty

Davy Carren ::	Picture of a Postcard

Misti Rainwater-Lites ::	Primordial Pudding

F.J. Bergmann ::	Instant Affirmative

Matthew Burnside ::	YUL BRYNNER DOESN’T GIVE A MOTHERFUCK
	NO ORGASM WILL EVER MAKE ME FEEL THE WAY MORGAN FREEMAN'S VOICE SOUNDS
	TRAPPED IN GARY BUSEY'S HOUSE, ONE TEXT LEFT

Matt Robinson ::	The Oppressionist

Nick Narbutas ::	Enchanted, I’m Sure

Eleanore Leonne Bennet ::	Two photographs

Alexis Pope ::	Tired, Hungry, Dirty

Meghan Lamb ::	It’s A Party!