Mary-Alice Daniel
Feel Better

There are some among us with no impulse control I mean zero 
Give them a pencil they’ll stick it in their eye
Show them a picture of eyelash mites no eyelashes seconds later

You strap them in a wheelchair crazy as hallelujah

Useless meat puppets                  Carnival of bad animals

Chaya in India believed the world would die when the Large Hadron Collider rebooted                    

She thought Earth would crack up and everyone would get pulled like a body just getting pulled

Her father tried to divert her attention no such thing                                                                  

A black hole that’s a bad end

 

 

 

 

 

The television is irresponsible saying an eclipse is bad omen
The rabble rushes to temple ignoring scientists saying nothing to fear calm yourselves calm calm

No wonder humans are called long pigs                 Not only for taste

Chaya ran from the evening news straight to the bleach you’ve already guessed she chugged it                                                                         That isn’t cosmic that’s a belly pain that’s human                                                             

Saying goodbye to your mother with chlorine on your breath


Hallelujah is the wrong word to begin with so start over
Tiny tiny crazy baby steps toward mass compulsion

 
Found In Volume 43, No. 06
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  • Mary Alice Daniel
Mary-Alice Daniel
About the Author

Mary-Alice Daniel was born in Nigeria and raised in England and Nashville. After attending Yale University, she received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan. Her poems have appeared in Iowa Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review, Callaloo, and several anthologies, including Best New Poets 2017.

Her adopted home is Los Angeles, where she is completing her debut poetry collection and earning a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.