Spending time
Spending mornings commiserating
with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson
about how much we both hate astrology,
blaming the popularity of the practice
for the reason I can’t get a girl; him
arguing that god doesn’t exist,
me bringing up Descartes, debating until dinner
spending nights arguing with JRR Tolkien
over whether technology is a good or evil,
him bringing up mustard gas and atomic bombs,
me bringing up vaccines and the internet,
telling him that the reason he doesn’t like tech
is because he’s only seen it used in warfare
spending hours talking to no one, except
for a spare phone call to mom, texts with Hanna
about work, and trying to read
my dog’s mind to see the world like her,
watching the pigeons perch on front porches
.
The Spider Watches
a monarch spider towers above
in a self-crocheted nest, its crimson
tripod segmented eyes listen to the grumbles
echoing from the valleys of humans beneath;
one of an ex-LuLaRoe saleswoman waiting
on hold to beg her credit card company for forgiveness
a getriatic facility nurse trying to reschedule her pap
smear because it interferes with her in-law’s brunch
a man hanging up on a Republican robocall calling
during Jeopardy while a life insurance ad plays behind him
a retired math teacher being tricked by a Nigerian
scam artist into reciting her social security number aloud
the voicemail of you trying to remind your girlfriend
that you need to get cake flour at Giant Eagle
the trinity of scarlet eyes watches with glee as it eats
the remaining half of a strangled fruit-fly carcass.
.
Why I’m alone
Is not the love-handles nor the scar
where rogue lymph nodes once were;
It’s the fact that alcohol ejects immediately
out of my mouth, my taste buds revolted
by Bacchus’s piss. It’s the fact that a colony
of peppy people in a close proximity scares me,
that the noise of a stereo strikes through my hyper-sensitive
Aspie ears; which is also why you never see a dog at a club.
I’m too liberal for being a baby-making machine bought by
Jesus freaks, and too conservative for Whole Food shoppers
date apps activate the OCD nerves in my brain, imaging
the girl behind the pretty photo is actually the T-1000 tricking
me into giving out my Social Security Number. Every time
I take a smiling selfie I look like a serial killer who just found
a closed Motel 6 to dump a body behind. The reason I’m alone
Has everything to do with my ugly insides, not my outsides.
© Morgan Boyer
Morgan Boyer is the author of The Serotonin Cradle (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and a graduate of Carlow University. Boyer has been featured in Kallisto Gaia Press, Thirty West Publishing House, Oyez Review, Pennsylvania English, and Voices from the Attic. Boyer is a neurodivergent bisexual woman who resides in Pittsburgh, PA.
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