Something you don’t know

Something you don’t know is the girl
behind the profile with the 3-year-old photo

read Hetalia fanfiction on the high school library
circulation desk computer back in 10th grade

Something you don’t know is she’s always
been too afraid to admit she hates Spongebob
Squarepants to her family for the past 20 years

Something you don’t know is
she dog-ears her poetry chapbooks

Something you don’t know is
she’s still trying to figure out how
the garbage disposal works

Something you don’t know is
she’s seen dead possums
and wanted to poke them with a stick

Something you don’t know is
she’s hid inside of the church parlor end tables

Something you don’t know is
she didn’t care about Mexican pizza day

Something you don’t know is
she’s the only one she knows
that enjoys vanilla coke

Something you don’t know is
she’s a human-sized gremlin trying to be an adult

So know that you’re hiring a monster
When you click to give me an offer

---

I’ve got news

Like a collapsed coaxial cable crushed
by the weight of a late July thunderstorm
so does my chest when your words
claim the spectres I spent months playing
with have no voice of their own;
their wit, smiles and tears were worth
no more than a crumbled-up Marshalls receipt.

I know you must not think much of me in your
overpriced New York high rise, assuming that
an absent-minded Applachian white trash hick
could never land herself on a national bestseller
list or sit in a chair while actors in make-up worth
more than my mother makes in six months go
over the lines I had written on a smudge-stained
couch eating non-organic Lays potato chips.

I’ve got news for you: I have a voice,
and it’s not going anywhere,
whether your Whole Foods ass likes it or not.

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Morgan Boyer is an author of The Serotonin Cradle (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and a graduate of Carlow University. Boyer has been published in Kallisto Gaia Press, Thirty West Publishing House, and Oyez Review.