Phantasmic Armistice

I’ve never ticked

off the box of adding that app.

I’ve occasionally ticked

off the man who filter drips me clips

through his phone. I’ve been ticked

there’s a ghost in my serotonin

receptors. The clocks have ticked

the reflection of the sun’s arc

in my Toshiba and Iphone alike. What a trick

the Romans played calling our muscles

little mice—mine suckle on the trickle

of sugar water notifications,

give the specter more time to tickle

the sand into the neural soup of my

amygdala. The entity floats over sage traps,

drips more guinea pig liquid to

erode me until I rip

myself from the screen, plant

my eyes on the dogwoods, the house

finches, the caterpillars traipsing

my door. The entity will return.

Cattails will tilt to meet its sweet tea tide.

Today’s poem came about from two prompts: one I’ve been mulling over for a hot minute, and one that helped me address the first one. The first prompt I’ve been chewing on comes from Safia Elhillo’s generative workshop post “Medical History,” which you can check out here.

The second prompt that helped me finally stitch this poem into something more than a grab bag of images in my journal was the phrase “there’s a ghost in my _____,” from Alex Dawson. You can view her prompts here.

Thank you to both of you for the prompts for today’s poem!