Juliet Cook
Severed Into Unspeakable Compliance
Our brains are supposed to fluctuate;
not stay stuck in one place.
Not get nailed into non-existence.
He did try to choke her
to death, but she's still alive
and he got lobotomized.
An ice pick plunged in above his eye.
A forced orbitoclast jerking off his brain
into catatonic oblivion.
The short version of the matter
is in this system,
mental stupor is better
than mental disorder.
*
In this system, they can shut down the brains
of women they've raped
so those women can't speak for themselves.
Those women just need to be fed
jiggling Jell-O, twisted and tickled
until they wet the bed,
then have their wet bed sheets changed
before they're invaded again
by the men in charge of this system.
Those women just need to be referred to
as silent oysters and get eaten,
strangled or spanked,
have their dressing reapplied
or removed, doctor's orders.
*
According to the nurse in charge,
you need to take her side right now.
You need to stay silent.
You need to tell her
exactly what she's telling you
to tell her or else.
What if she tells your mom
what you said?
What if she tells your mom
what you did?
What if she tells your mom
that you're gay?
What if she tells your mom
that you enjoyed sleeping
with another human being
without being married to them,
without choking them or
decapitating the frontal lobe
of their brain?
*
In this system, how dare you choose for yourself
instead of being told what you should
or shouldn't do and bowing down
to the doctor's orders.
After this system puts you in your place,
you will be a human pet
just the way he wants you to be.
You will be a butchered vegetable
just the way they want you to be.
It won't matter anymore what you wanted,
thought or felt because you won't remember
or think or feel.
*
This part of the system is an institutionalized shark attack.
The orbitoclast looks like a tiny hammerhead
shark inserted above the aberrant
patient's eye sockets,
hammered into that human being's brain,
wiggling that brain into termination.
I Don't Like Primary Colors
Standard red
sauce covers
the heavy thickness
of over-cooked spaghetti,
dull lethargy
filled with half-contained hate.
Routine bad dreams
in which the man
suddenly shifts
from friendly to invasive,
then cuts out my tongue
so that I can no longer
complain about
how I don't love
forced sauce.
Instead of words,
globs of primary colored
red and darker red
blood pours out of my mouth.
My synapses regressed
by trusting the wrong man
then getting torn apart
and dripping,
and fading away
from everyone else's words.
Little ghost tongues
try to splash out
of the water,
then slash themselves
into skulls,
marooned.
Sink back down.
My marooned horror
and dread drags
the standard red
roses down with me,
watches them drown
and then become a darker color,
new texture, new shape.
I will rip out
the parts I want to rip out.
I will choose
for myself
to place the cold marooned skulls
on top my radiator,
singe them,
watch my new voice
spark up...
Intervention
In a dream in a room in a circle
of people like I'm the only one
being called out
in an intervention,
but it's not about drugs or alcohol.
It's just about me being me.
The leader of the group is a control freak.
I can't tell if she thinks she's helping me
or shaming me or both at the same time,
but she's spouting out a detailed speech,
announcing my flaws to this circle
of people who thought I had strength.
She's exaggerating my disabilities
in front of people who didn't even know
I was disabled and I can't do anything about it
(about having lost every bit of my own
voice and power)
other than scream and scream and
then slash my own throat.
Both Similar and Dissimilar
I woke up confused.
I scoured through my purse,
found an unexpected pill container.
Scoured through the pill container,
brimming with tablets and grime.
I felt dirty and cracked.
Unsure if I really existed.
I saw one light blue glow,
then it disappeared.
I saw two light blue seizure pills,
then they disappeared.
I finally found another one,
but wasn't really sure if it was mine.
I was walking through a parking lot
both similar and dissimilar.
The lot was filled with honking
geese, with goose eggs
turning into dried out shit.
I can't remember how old
these pills are, whether or not
they're expired, whether or not I am.
Had I already taken them and where
had they even come from?
Was I moving forwards or backwards
or not really moving at all?
Was I stuck inside a waiting room,
locked in an indefinite hiatus?
I had forgotten
to wear my light blue work shirt.
I thought I had remembered
where my office was, but now
I was staring at the closed doorway
of a room filled with cleaning supplies.
Then I remembered I no longer had this job.
My underwear smelled dirty
or maybe that was goose shit.
Maybe the geese had followed me inside,
but then how come I couldn't see them?
Maybe I'd had a seizure and lost
control of my bowels. Maybe I'd lost my mind.
I wasn't sure if I was human anymore.
Maybe I was a goose in labor,
giving birth to a subhuman or else
I was in the middle of aborting my own brain
inside another terrible dream, trapped
underneath a seeping blue machine
shaped like a giant pill container
with cracked slots that don't keep anything inside.
A loudly honking lullaby of horrific
conjoined twin geese, a grody gaggle
of gag reflexes swarming out of my mouth,
blue stingers instead of wings.
I woke up confused, unable to move,
unable to explain myself, but still thinking
none of the clothes I wore fit anymore,
I couldn't fly away from the broken mirrors,
and if I was a goose he would hate me.
Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of print and online publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including red flames burning out (Grey Book Press, 2023), Contorted Doom Conveyor (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), and Your Mouth is Moving Backwards (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023). She has another new poetry chapbook, REVOLTING, forthcoming from Cul-de-sac of Blood in fall 2024. Her most recent full-length poetry book, Malformed Confetti was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2018. Cook also sometimes writes collaborative poetry and also sometimes creates abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures. Cook's tiny independent press, Blood Pudding Press, sometimes publishes hand-designed poetry chapbooks and sometimes creates other art. You can find out a bit more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.