The Most Efficient Way to Eat an Orange
is to bite right into it, to scarf down the meat and the flesh
all in one big gulp and swallow it down whole.
cherish the rind and let it scrape against your stomach,
sandpaper on skin. a spoonful of sugar
makes the medicine go down, but why not eat the spoon as well?
sip your coffee with me on the balcony;
I’ll smile at you while I swirl in the milk and splenda.
I’ve always wanted to drink coffee black but I’ve
never had the stomach for it. of course, you’ve never
been one to sugarcoat things , but I will relish in
lies and artificial sweetness until I lie deep in the ground.
I wish I was a black coffee truth telling orange rind woman
but the sky is too wide and the grass too tall, the colors
too vivid and the wind too loud. maybe one day I will
appreciate the vast bigness of the world for myself
but for now I will just tell you how much I love it
i’m not hungry, thank you though
i eat an apple at eight pm and allow myself a black chocolate every six weeks i vyperize everything i eat with you it’s been a long time since i’ve stomached linguini and of course i’ve used all my normal techniques making myself foam at the mouth like a diseased emerald of a cow retching away as my knees scrape the floor don’t worry, though, i would say that karma has repaid me in full insects have been swarming me the crows have been circling in wait oh but i’m still dulling dulling dulling there’s this quiet violence upon seeing my reflection like watching saving private ryan on mute i watch d-day rip itself apart watch tom hanks bark orders at his shaking men but i can never quite make out the words my friend once said there’s not enough space to bury us all he thinks we should simply build mass tombs stack bodies one on top of the other that’ll be the closest to another person i think i’ll have ever been maybe though i’ll opt for cremation untouchable in life untouchable in death particles of ash and dust stuffed in an old jar that’s the smallest i’ll ever be and by far the gladdest
the cake was full-bodied and sweet and i
was neither don’t bother mixing or baking it
next time simply pour the raw yolk down my
throat less calories that way i blur at the
edges of myself becoming big at the stomach
from eating the room around me when did i
stop knowing where i ended and where the
world began? my face is a gauzy kind of pink
as if i looked in the mirror right when the
painter began to blend my colors i want to
gorge myself upon a table gargle toilet water
to cleanse my palette and begin again and
again and again the air around me is heavy
and cruel a milky weighted blanket an
extravaganza of smell mmm i can almost
taste the headstone
Casey Epstein-Gross is from Tallahassee, Florida, and her poems have
recently appeared or are forthcoming in Soundings East, Up North Lit, Raw
Art Review, Rare Byrd Review, and Chaleur Magazine. She can be found on Instagram at @caseyepsteingross.
Thin Air 