Malice
Julianne Neely
the temperature of the human = body
can heat up significantly = centigrade
moving vertical match = es could
never achieve this type of lit = up
vapors and gases that spill like = sus
tained lies into the air she = spun and
translated how her = fingers t ouch
how her ribs prod at = my skin how
her tongue makes = phonetics my eyes
dizzy let me pick = which lie to keep
up with today = watch the hipster salon
put = different colors in your
expensive = hair as a farm share
delivers your = organic broccoli for
you to cut into = bits for you a boy is
carrying a = golden goose filled coat
how sick = Americans make me and I
am one stealing = shoes if I want my
feet to be covered = cans from the food
pantry I offer to = my friends we feast
together as a = royal skippy family my
enemies = they
won’t eat my poor shit they = art iculate
this wow dramatis = person ae whatever
is the opposite = of main character you
are the white noise = of money apple
watch titanium credit = card the hour is
forgivable the slack = is not as it arches
toward information = ass embly
pantomime for profit ≠ sonnet artificial
thumbs do not = good poems o o o rabid
narcissism rots like = milk left out in the
liquid sun and yes = I have come out
swinging like = a volatile helix or a river
or doors = of in unit washer and dryer the
cycle = set to spin and the coffee maker
= unused in the morning the rich can’t =
resist buying their coffee fresh six =
dollars a cup and I feel so lucky so =
lucky my self-recognition is platinum =
bliss revealed like a spread eagle = I like
to be exact when I say that I = say most
poets are like pyrite = mirror glint poof
they are gone = most
are fooled by it but I am not =
how you see me = you are a fool
you see = you are a fool

Julianne Neely received her MFA degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she received the Truman Capote Fellowship, the 2017 John Logan Poetry Prize, and a Schupes Fellowship for Poetry. She is currently a Poetics PhD student and an English Department Fellow at the University at Buffalo. Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, VIDA, The Poetry Project, The Rumpus, The Iowa Review and more. She has three chapbooks out with Slope Editions, garden-door Press, and Foundlings Press.