Into the Abyss
2024-2025
TWICE MINDED
By Jameson Gillihan
By Jameson Gillihan
I put things off again last night
the countertop flour trail
crusty forks water-bogged rice maggoting the drain slick-slop butcherbait or wo-
Somebody is in my kitchen.
Why is there another person
in my kitchen.
There’s a stranger scrubbing stovetop grease and meatstuff off the counter
Purging pink slime my slime get your fucking hands off my slime
To stop the stranger I plug my nose and plop my tongue on the cutting board
defiantly (I WILL DO THE CLEANING)
I lick pig juice from polyethylene
slurp
This does not deter the stranger,
who in fact seems almost compelled by the scene, this strange head slapping the counter
tongue flailing like an animal
that shits itself or sheds its limbs in panic, and what are you going to do about it? Are you really
just going to keep cleaning?
It was kind of a point of pride, seeing how dirty my kitchen could get.
I liked seeing smell become
tangible
I liked that I could affect the world in this way
I liked having irrefutable proof that there might be something wrong with me
So
you're kind of fucking up my everything
what you're doing right now
The stranger hums sniffles or shifts the way one does bored or uncomfortable.
The speaker realizes their position
primed like pork for carving
and I didn’t put the knives away last night
obviously
[
]
That’s the sound of nothing happening.
Despite being splayed wide and irresistible
I guess I’m not good enough for whoever is in my kitchen.
Something about me is just
unappetizing.
Are you really not interested in cutting me up?
Would you at least think about it
I imagine the look on your face
slicing strips of me
underwhelmingly
all I can do is imagine
at some point you’ll succumb to the urge
or my jaw will get tired
Would you succumb to the urge already
[
]
That’s still the sound of nothing happening
and still, nothing happens,
serrated sloshing rough-side sponge
silver-on-silver
sink-soaked leftovers
The stranger says I don't have to take control of my body by hurting it
I can take control of my body
by taking care of it
So would you take your tongue
off the cutting board
please
The stranger puts the knives away
My jaw is getting tired
MARCO
By Jameson Gillihan
By Jameson Gillihan
Marco was my neighbor’s dog. They never bothered to train him which I never thought was fair, not to him or them or me and what about me, what I deserve, I’m up the street, your neighbor. The dog’s name was Marco and he was black with cute tan eyebrows over which he had immaculate control, raising one, the other, pleading begging crying or manifest-excitement his eyebrows flying off his face he’d run. We took him for walks when the neighbors were out of town and listened to him howl on the weekends when they threw their parties. Marco had sharp teeth and a wet, pink tongue. His nails left shallow ruts in the living room floor. He was always so full of energy. Who has that much energy?
Dogs. Dogs have that much energy. What do you really want to know the answer to?
I guess I want to know why he couldn’t calm down. What’s so hard about sitting still for an extended period of time, really. Why my neighbors thought to get a dog in the first place if they were never going to bother trying to train him—
Sorry. Really though, what was that decision process like. Or what is it like to share a house with an animal you never want to spend any time with, or what it’s like to spend all your time an animal thumbless covered in fur. How to be a dog and never trained. Could you not afford me this small attention? I just want to be good for you but I never learned how. And I have so
much
energy
racing
through me
rib-rattled
hyperactive
mongrel
breaking chains I
needed to know what would happen if I pushed your
limits or
if you even had any
I was wrong/
wrong/ wrong/ wrong I was
paper-whacked righteousness I was
red-skinned blushing I was
blushing
I knew I had done something wrong
I did something bad
To you
What did I do
*
I develop a habit
of licking myself pink
of tongue-scraped bald spots under my ribs
I lick myself nauseous
I puke black hair
You clean for me while I watch
guilt-touched but pleased with the attention
I taste the creases between my arms and belly
the arch of my thighs
my tail
my shit
I develop a habit of whining
a tool I will keep with me forever a smoke signal catharsis a thing to do bored
I’m always bored
Marco was always bored
but the poor thing never could control himself and it was easy to grow resentful,
my second-story
glower snipe-shooting from afar
telepath misanthropy
my neighbors were immune to,
poor Marco, I think he absorbed it all for them.
He was gone eventually not sure how, or
when our last walk was or if he’d jumped fence or
tugged himself loose mid-walk one day or if
his owners finally got tired of guarding the gate and decided to just let him go for it.
He was gone but they were still there. I watched them dismantle the dog house from the second-story window.
