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Teresa A. Phipps

void

I figured out why you won't buy furniture.

You won't buy furniture because you're depressed.

I'll tell you what's wrong with you: you're not

gregarious. You should look at yourself; the only time you're totally happy is when you cut up a chicken.

Why can't we talk about what I want to talk about?

Why do you always change the subject? You hurt my feelings. I do not mistake reiteration for analysis.

You should take one of those chemicals, maybe you'd write more. Maybe you have some kind of void syndrome.

You know why you cook? Because you like control. A person who cooks is a person who likes to create debt.

Actual people! Actual human beings sitting on our chairs in our living room!

I'll tell you what: I'll learn bridge.

Don't think of them as guests, think of them as extra chickens. You'd like it.

If we had more furniture you'd have more control.

purple bathing suit

I like watching you garden

with your back to me in your purple bathing suit:

your back is my favorite part of you,

the part furthest away from your mouth.

You might give some thought to that mouth.

Also to the way you weed, breaking

the grass off at ground level

when you should pull it up by the roots.

How many times do I have to tell you

how the grass spreads, your little

pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which

by smoothing over the surface you have finally

fully obscured? Watching you

stare into space in the tidy

rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly

working hard while actually

doing the worst job possible, I think

you are a small irritating purple thing

and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth

because you are all that's wrong with my life

and I need you and I claim you.

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