Comorbid Jukebox

By Rose Jenny

Apathy is an understatement

for what you haul atop your 

crooked frame, rocked back 

and forth, a baggy sheet filled with

shattered bones, a percussive

solo played on hollow remains.

You are a plague pharmacist,

not a doctorate to speak of,

self-medicating by exposure

therapy, Ghost as all purpose

anesthetic, applied to the ear

drums, a rumbling, volcanic

eruption beginning in your toes,

pouring poison out your mouth,

a venom made of every horrid

song you ever chanted at me,

those that echo in my chest,

a sleepless sort of self-harm.

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Rose Jenny (she/her) is a trans writer/performer based in Tampa, Florida. Currently, she is finishing her bachelor's degree in creative writing at University of South Florida. She has previously studied various forms of writing at Marymount Manhattan College, The Barrow Group, and Sackett Street Writers' Workshop.