Enjoy Being Human

Ken Cenicola and Jessy Randall

This Ride Takes a Mile of Tickets

This ride takes a mile of tickets.
I like the underground swings.

(My sandwich is full of sand, the grit
of it matching the salt in your hair.
You smell like a piña colada. I’ll drink you,
then keep your paper umbrella in my shirt pocket.)

You must be at least this creepy to operate this ride,
the machinery of it grinding like teenagers.

(I can tell what's going to happen when the lights go off.
I pray for you to grab my hand.)

In the capsule, your shoes slipped off your feet
and hit my skull with every rotation.

Books

The ocean sucks my brain out
and spews it into the middle of the middle school cafeteria.
In the end, don't we all smash our head on the rocks?
She descended upon me out of nowhere and
put her claws into my soul, then rejected me like a skin graft.
I made an alphabet out of my spit.
Ramifications mean nothing when the heart is consumed.
The crown on his head was so distracting I could not laugh.
A paper witch with paper spells.
All romantics are liars, why are you?
Don't tell me I'm a girl, even if I am.
You nearly killed me with that book.
It's not blood, it's just red.
If we lived in a tree would I have to do it with you every day?
Sad as wet potato chips. Sad as a popsicle in the sand.
The aliens never stay, they have better things to do.
The enemy is always down.
We're too stupid for infinity.
Even though I know what will happen I'm afraid it won't happen.
The light over your mountains conceals a dragon.
I expel your angelic name in a series of dry heaves
and the gravity of the situation crushes my heart.
These repetitions don't help. You're still gone and always were.
Freeze it to kill it. Extremes of heat and cold feel the same.
You were so different from what everyone said about you.
You were the beginning of modernity for me.

About Ken Cenicola and Jessy Randall

Contributor headshot, Jessy Randall and Ken Cenicola

Ken Cenicola and Jessy Randall have known each other since 1990. Their collaborations have appeared in Ohio Edit, Pilgrimage, Press 1, and Robot Melon. Ken tweets at twitter.com/kcenicola and Jessy’s website is http://bit.ly/JessyRandall.


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