Killin’ It
Candida, candida,
I soak a tampon in apple cider vinegar
and push it up my
lavender candle, lavender candle.
Tilikum, Tilikum,
people do awful things to make money
in the name of
entertainment.
Sea World is a fucking horrible place.
Entertain me, entertain me,
soft world.
Fuck Sea World.
Are you captive in a place just a
little bit larger than your
body?
I fall into a very deep thought about
the conditions of vanishing
in the well-lit, but not too well-lit
change room.
I buy fluoride-free toothpaste because
I’m trying to
activate my pineal gland.
Some people say evil people who work
for powerful people
put fluoride in the water because it
dumbs you down.
Candida, candida
I am self-medicating with pure
cranberries and apple cider vinegar.
I buy chocolate eggs and tea light
candles.
Everyone’s tongue is pink la-la-la.
I am craving sugar so much.
Candida, candida,
I do mountain pose in yoga and kill
it.
I kill that pose.
I dream that I dance with Beyonce on AstroTurf.
I kill that dream.
I dance like the best I’ve danced
ever.
I sip my cell phone, mistaking it for
a glass of water.
I breathe out of my
ears.
*
Cinnamon Oil
I resist
tweeting and keep the following thought to myself: In industrial meadows we are
future gardens made of heart nectar.
The average
human being thinks somewhere between 7,000-50,000 thoughts a day.
How many
thoughts does the Dalai Lama have a day? How many thoughts does Miley Cyrus
have a day? What does this tell us about thinking?
How does one classify a
thought?
Do you think a
thought, or does a thought think you?
I don’t want to
hear what I’m thinking. I don’t want to think what I’m hearing.
I put cinnamon
oil behind my ear.
It burns my skin, but I do it again and again.
By accident, I
create a wound.
I put amber dust
on my wrists in the bathroom.
Someone upstairs
is jumping up and down a lot.
The government
is on strike, or something unbelievable like that.
I dream that I
climb a pyramid only to find a mall with a shitty food court at the top.
I order a
coffee.
I dream about a
girl who steals my lovers’ heart with nothing but her eyes,
which are like
mine but not.
She is singing
‘There was a
calming but it’s gone’ over and over again.
I am here with
the fruit flies.
I am creating
mansions made of orange rinds for the fruit flies.
I am writing to
avoid feeling awkward.
Don’t ask me
about my online behavior,
it is a
sensitive issue.
It plays a part
in my samsara, which I am
trying to escape.
Beginnings are
just as delicate as endings.
I will live
through every moment because I have to, because it is necessary for my
survival.
A girl walks by
me on the street carrying a birdcage with nothing inside of it.
I imagine a
360-degree rainbow surrounding my body.
I walk by
flowers without noting how vivid their colours are.
I walk through a
field in the middle of the city.
I walk by
flowers without noting how vivid their colours are,
where someone
has knocked over two bee hives by some white flowers.
Endings are just
as delicate as beginnings.
*
August
6, 2014
I wish there was
a time machine app that I could download to my iPhone for free right now.
I don’t want to
do things without thinking and without consequence.
I was raised on
slow, dial-up Internet—I was raised on an empty landscape.
I want to go to
a yoga gathering in a forest with a bunch of earthly humans who have glow in
the dark hearts, and feelings that shine right through their skin.
I am always
thinking about all of our heartbeats, how they beat together.
I am trying to
find that space between inhaling and exhaling.
I am not a tree
and probably won’t be one in my next life.
I want to go to
a rave in the sky and dance with an aurora borealis.
I want to braid
wasp stingers into my hair and forget everything I thought I knew.
I want to eat
magic mushrooms and trip out in the forest.
I want to lay
down on some moss with wild things all around me and know that you aren’t here
because you hate yoga and nature.
“Fuck nature, I
rejected nature,” you say.
I want to have a
revelation, so I do. I am a flower.
I want to eat
berries straight from the bush and not from some stupid plastic box that I will
throw in the recycling and forget to take out on tuesday night.
I will hear the
recycling truck roar by in the morning when the sky has orangey-red clouds
floating in it and it is that hue that always makes me think ‘apocabliss,’ as
in ‘apocalypse,’ but not.
I am so sad and
so happy that every second is a new possibility.
Would Buddha use
the Internet?
I feel like a
snow bank, with feelings.
Do I perceive
reality or do I create it in my mind?
My ultimate
reality is Twitter and dirty dishes, which kind of feel like the same thing to
me.
If I wish hard
enough, could I manifest some freshly-baked peanut butter cookies? Could I turn
myself into a rainbow or a rich kitten? Can’t I just nap in the sun? Can’t I
just be a rainbow already?
I make myself a
coffee and kick the recycling bag very hard, but only in my head.
It is still
here. I am still here.
I turn the radio
on and off.
I eat some
berries from a plastic container.
I notice a
mirror is missing from the living room and wonder why.
Like, woa, I’m
awake and oh well.
Like, hello
leg.
God, it would be
horrible to get your identity stolen.
It’s a shame we
can’t all read minds because then this poem would be over and I wouldn’t need
to write anything down.
It’s a shame
there isn’t a free mind-reader app I could download.
Oh god, nature
is dead.
***
Ashley
Opheim is a Montreal-based poet and publisher. She was
born
and raised in 'the land of the living skies'—Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan—to
Mexican and English parents. She completed her
BA
in Creative Writing at Concordia University in 2012.
She
has been involved in numerous creative endeavours in writing
and
publishing. Her most recent contributions are to Metatron,
where
she is the founder and managing editor. She is also an active
poet,
frequently giving readings and publishing in literary journals.
She
has been published in a vast array of platforms and different
media
and has performed across North America and the United
States.
Her work and the projects she has been involved in have
been
featured in places like The New Yorker, The
Guardian, The
Huffington
Post, DAZED, PAPERMAG, Flavorwire, Fast Company,
Elle
Quebec and Normale Magazine.
Her poetry has been
anthologized
in Canada, the United States, Spain and Romania and
has
been translated in various languages..
She
is currently completing her first full-length collection of poetry,
Ambient
Technology and the Iridescent Glitch,
and writing for The
Museum
of Symmetry, an interactive game for pre-adolescent girls,
for
The National Film Board of Canada.
ASHLEY.E.OPHEIM@GMAIL.COM
