“Web Scraping” & “Ex Waif[u]” by Julie Chen
Web Scraping
Each of my shitposts I intend from the bottom Of my vowels Heeheeheehee haaaahaaahaahaaa hoo! hoo! I have most of what I need It’s what I deserve If I touched my friends, I’d be in love My life is fairly ordinary but There is much I could write In the blink of an I, Cobwebs for the Web To spin from my fractal fingers You do not read me But there are more writers than readers And institutions to validate them, by which I mean Glitched attics Gloves under gloves is a bug’s life communist Asks the collective unconscious, Which too often tweets “we” when it means “I” as it’s less lonely to be a collection of data By “I” I mean An empty rocking chair Ants march in a line on the counter: ppp ppp ppp ppp ooo ppp ppp (One of them is sitting)
Ex Waif[u]
says “good morning” to the world[おはようございます]
power line eyelashes matted with asphalt yawns like a toaster & fans her neck with gingko leaves autumn spat yellow on the street wet with yearning no my dear, the butler demurs
[お嬢様]
it hasn’t snowed just a confidential rain shredded paper anonymous plastic the birds choke & the leaf blower growls the squirrels fuck ing everywhere
[チューチュー]
listen, my darling menagerie as you dress me head to toe in rei kawakubo: i used to hate my body back when it barely existed now i’m someone’s ex! next year swimming pools and sinkhole galaxies but today it’s too cold for it to be this bright my sundresses tease my hot & lonely selfies tease climate change teases someday palm trees in the lot by my apartment the orthodox jews use for outdoor shabbat i used to reuse grocery bags & takeout cutlery back when my fork fingers were someone else’s implements now i pay for coffee i’m still white as a watermelon and i don’t leave the house but by the crust in my nipples the skin between my toes i believe in online shopping the world is big and there’s so much to learn every rejection i face I'm like well that was a first this winter is sodden with previous ones a freezer burnt ice cream cake have i felt everything there is to feel already? (except motherhood) i used to try for moral consistency but the single stream recycling gets shipped to china and back now i am i am i am i am a splatter of impulses jackson pollock cumshot! a garbage bag of leaves split at the seams i couldn’t keep from ripping if i wanted to not paper not plastic just a lady decomposing (a violinical depression) ship me to china too on a magnificent steamer the opalescent pearl the attention-seeking whore i’m not teensy tiny cutie baby no more
[かわいい]
accountable for my actions i am ready ready ready for a beautiful goodbye