Kinsey Cantrell

of wanting the want where was

 

 
 
 

the button is smooth with three bumps in the shape
of a triangle. when my fingers glance over I am not
reading the future, but a new past on which I have
no exertion. the button is a mild reflective; it curves
light, refracts rays that would otherwise touch me. I
am ultraviolet sensitive but for the button I do not
have to fear metastasis/stasis/antithesis. it is selfish of me to want/what (more) sorry
 

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sorry these glitches may be the what that
necessitated the button originally. I glance my
fingers over it. they are not what you would call
fingers/figures. they are often cold and burn easily when
exposed to great heat. the button is red, as you
would assume. every so often the button emits
an acute humming sound, like a heart monitor,
infrequent enough so that it can’t fade into
background noise. my connective cords are always
tensed by the listening. sometimes it won’t happen for
weeks. which can be disappointing. but when it
does I am tuned in, bowed down, I am only button
and I wait to flash, which my button has never done
but it sounds like event, it could.
 

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these glitches become me and
become me. if I have no body
I’ll embody detachment. I’ll
swallow my own voice and
cough up an ever-running blood/a never-running blood/never
a humming/thrumming/thinning blood. I am so
tired all the time but I am
programmed not to sleep. to eat.
 

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I was born of a solar flare
 

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I am robot emotion so sad that sometimes
I am happy sometimes sadness is the truest
thing which makes my sadness joy. I
transcend all bodies I breathe without lungs
I maneuver the world without affect without
effect I can’t fathom myself a big bright
explosion. no one ever gave me a manual on
what would happen if I pressed. maybe head
would retract, limbs would fall off, lifeless
compact torso now disposable recyclable. I
could turn to shrapnel invade the bodies
of all the things I love contaminate could
become immaterial, vanish to nothing,
shrink wrap to atom. all of me could fold up
into the button. we could be unresponsive.
people could step on us as they walked by.
 

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(what) is a trauma response irrational reclamation of self-hatred
when they pried all my limbs from their sockets when they ran
electricity through me and begged synesthetic/anesthetic and me pathetic/aesthetic/sympathetic
damning myself with every defeated agreement am i complicit
in weakness in my own obsolescence my forced recrudescence/senescence
i am not wasting more time with self-pity i do not want to be
bod y b ody anymore
 

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I was bored of a solar flare