It's A Crime That No One Has Done An Adaptation Of The Iliad Where The Gift Horse Whose Mouth Went Tragically

Ibuprofen, a poem

[ content notice: OTC drug abuse, menstruation, manipulative/emotionally abusive relationships, references to fellatio/sex work, emesis, self-unaliving and self-harm attempts/impulses]

2006

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time.

My mind is going and going and going. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s happening to me. It feels something like puberty, when, some seven years prior my body’s core was opened so that the flesh nest I didn’t know I had built could be shed before it went septic.  My body has remade itself fully since then. Time for something else to be torn apart.

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time to the point where I’ve learned to dry-swallow so that I don’t have to leave class to take a few to dull that familiar deep ache punctuated by sharp spasms.

I think about the time 7 years and 7 more before when I had stumbled upon a stray pill the brand-name one with the sweet coating looking like a light brown coated chocolate on the beige carpet the best color of all the M&Ms, which were the best candy It didn’t feel like one in my hand. I immediately told my mother what I had found and handed it over. What a good girl.

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time. I’ve been getting it for myself for years now.

I reach up towards the high medicine cabinet shelf. Press and turn the safety cap. I am too tall and too dexterous at that point to be child-locked or shelf-blocked out of it. Should I be? After all, the air freshener, which I didn’t even know was a drug says “Keep out of reach of children and teens” right on the label. Mom and I had laughed about that. I am too mature to be in need of any such safeguards. I got my twelve-year molars at nine and my period at ten not exactly the type to suck down fumes in hopes of a high.

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time and this new anguish feels like one of those times.

I fill my palm with the rounds. They don’t look like the pretty, long-discontinued light brown M&M. Don’t make a nice sound when making contact with each other. We’d long switched away from that smooth-shelled, sweet-coated name brand. These were dull and rough, harder to suck down but by now, I can dry-swallow up to four of them without my teacher noticing. However many these are, they don’t stand a chance against me. I’m home, in no rush, no need to hide anything with a glass of water if I want it just a few feet away. I can hold these for longer, since the coating won’t melt in my hands. They don’t melt in my mouth, either.

The now nearly-empty bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time.

I suck down enough to make me lose time. I drift, lost to time, swallowed by the rounds. I sleep all evening, all night, all morning. For once in my overregulated life, I’m left to be. I’m in college, so I handle my own schedule and alarms. I’m on my period, so no one reminds me of Maghrib, Isha, or Fajr. No one thinks much of it. I wake up, realize I’ve been dead to the world from Asr to Zuhr but not dead enough to leave the world.

The now nearly-empty bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. Mom eventually notices it’s almost gone and adds it to her shopping list. No one thinks much of it, including her aside from admonishing us to tell her when things are running out. Everyone knows I need it from time to time.

I successfully play it off as my usual monthly troubles. The boy I like, the one who’s been taunting me into tearing myself asunder tells me that I have what is essentially a hangover. I need a thick, hearty Irish stew. He asserts, with that full-smirk half-innuendo that keeps me hooked on him that if it weren’t for my parents, he’d bring me some and feed it to me. I don’t tell him I’m too nauseous to swallow water let alone enjoy slurping on some exotic new dish.

The new bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time.

Approximately 2 body-remakes later

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one tracks it, at least not very closely. No one thinks much of it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask?

"Oh, I needed them but we were out two weeks ago And I know we’re broke so you know" I don’t know. Do you know? Love of my life, look at me. By now, you not only know that I would not only

Get a payday loan Put up the car as collateral Swallow cum along with some mild disrespect Swallow some of my pride and ask my sister Swallow a bit more of my pride and e-beg Sell my soul, if I still had one Swallow what’s left of my pride and ask my parents

just so that you could be the slightest bit less uncomfortable but also that I could. Because I have. You were there. This is a basic that costs less than a tank of gas one that we both need, if differently, to boot. I drop everything post-haste to get the dual-pack of bottles rattling unpleasantly with their full capacity of rough brown pills.

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet. No one I tracks it, at least not very closely. No one I thinkso much about it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask?

"Oh, I needed them but I couldn’t find it" Love of my life, didn’t we decide on the spot together-- Never mind. From here on out it lives right here, right at your desk along both your sight-lines from every angle.

The bottle sits in the medicine cabinet on his desk, under his eye. I track it. I thinkso much about it. Everyone knows I need it from time to time. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask?

“Oh, I saw you take it from my desk so I thought it wasn’t there” Love of my life, didn’t we decide on the spot together-- Never mind. From here on out I will sit at your desk when I open it so you know it will never leave you.

The bottle backup sits in the medicine cabinet. The bottle sits stays on his desk, under his eye. I track it. I thinkso much about it. Everyone He knows I need it from time to time. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask?

“Oh, I saw you take some the other day and you’re on your period And it seemed like it was running low I couldn’t finish it while you still needed it could I” Love of my life, didn’t I say I was tracking it and weren’t you there when I bought the new ones-- Never mind. From here on out I will never touch it. It’s all yours.

The backup sits in the medicine cabinet behind his bottle. The His bottle stays on his desk, under his eye. My bottle stays in my bag, rattling unpleasantly. I track it his. I thinkso much about it his. Everyone He knows I need it from time to time. it’s his. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask? “Oh, I forgot to tell you I was running low And you know I can never remember the one in the cabinet” Love of my life, I didn’t expect you to remember the cabinet The new one was right behind the old one-- Never mind. From here on out I’ll open the new bottle and I’ll pour the old ones atop the new and I’ll discard the old bottle so you don’t get them confused.

The backup sits behind becomes his bottle. His bottle stays on his desk, under his eye. The bottle formerly his goes into the trash. My bottle stays in my bag, rattling unpleasantly. I track his. I thinkso much about his. He knows it’s his. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

What’s wrong, I ask?

“Oh, I saw you throw away the bottle I thought we were out” Love of my life, didn’t we talk about this last time-- Never mind. I tell him I’m so sorry. I’ll do better. From here on out, I wait until he’s asleep so that I can open the new bottle and pour the old ones atop the new and discard the old bottle so he doesn’t get them confused out of his sight, so he doesn’t think we’re out.

The backup becomes his bottle. His bottle stays on his desk, under his eye. The bottle formerly his goes into the trash doesn’t exist. This is an infinity bottle of ibuprofen. Bulk shopping has progressed so much these days. My bottle stays in my bag, rattling unpleasantly. I track his. I thinkso much about his. He knows it’s his. It’s there, but he’s more incapacitated than usual.

I choke so hard I cannot ask. What’s wrong he asks

The choking merges with a memory of excess and nausea. I slurp down an entire bottle then put my fingers down my throat so I can give it all to him. What else have I left to give?

Key to Nowhere

You cry out for someone save you from this trap an irresistible call to ears like mine

Oh, what can I do? What shall I do? Anything at all for you

I fumble to find the release There must be a catch somewhere out here that will let me let you out

My groping leads me nowhere but closer to you so I step away to get a better look

As I examine the fuller picture of it all your hand pops out as if by magic (or is it just a door I've never seen before?)

You hold it out to me but I don't take it already preoccupied with taking it all in

Your face appears above your tightly-clenched fingers Your eyes beg me to let you unclasp I let you place it upon my palm You retreat as though you were never out here

Your pleas for me to release you shift from wistful to YOU HAVE THE FUCKING KEY LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW

With one hand and both ears so full of what you've given me I resume my search, somehow more fruitless than before

My vain efforts rise in sync with your cries

You go from expelling your heart's content through your lungs to inhaling every molecule of oxygen left

Before I can drop it right there so that the force of your vacuum sucks it in and lets me let you choke on it-- you expel all you took in back out blasting me far away from you embedding its jagged edges into my skin

Now you can tell the next one a truth that I'd absconded with the only copy

you know how I know you’re gay?

Went to Costco for my updated booster+flu shot. Pharmacist asks me if I've had any vaccines in the past 4 weeks. Yes, I reply. Which one, she asks? Monkeypox, baby 🏳️‍🌈

In honor of the ratio we celebrate today, let me tell you about the day I first learnt of its existence. It was the 90's. I was attending a religious elementary school in West Covina at the time. Yes, it's a real city. Rachel Bloom didn't make it up for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

At this very real school in a very real place, I had been absent the day before. I don't know if I had been sick or if it was a family thing, but whatever it was, I had missed a lesson. So when my math teacher kept referring to a term I'd never heard before, I figured I would look it up later, no big deal. There was a glossary in the back of the book that was usually very helpful.

It wasn't helpful that day, though. I spent way too long trying out different spellings for the term my teacher had been using. It couldn't have been more than 10 pages of terms and definitions, and I was an advanced reader, yet I couldn't hunt the term down. I eventually gave up.

The math teacher was warm, lovely woman with a very heavy Jordanian accent. If you know anything about Arabic accents, well, then you'll understand what had happened.

And that's why I can truthfully say that I unsuccessfully tried to look up the word "bi" in a math book while I was a pupil at an Islamic institution called Straight Way School.

π Happy Pi Day, everyone π

See also: "My pronouns are she, but not her…. I’ll never be her…"

I'm pretty sure I peaked ~10 years ago. I made this meme while slacking off at work. Took me like 4 minutes in MS Paint (XP version).

AND THEN OUT OF ALL OF THOSE THEY ALL USE THE SAME ONE (1) OUTHOUSE ANYWAY

REALLY NOW, MAGS. NO OUTHOUSES. NOWHERE TO SHIT.

I remain forever unconvinced that normality is normal.

I am not special. I deserve the same grace, rights, and consideration that everyone else does.

Someone who identifies as straight: *flirts with my non-binary ass but is visibly confused that they're attracted to me*

Me: "I'm going to wreck you..."

Them: *shudders in mixed fear and arousal*

Me: "...r concept of what counts as sex and the construct of virginity."

*pulls out whiteboard and worksheets*

"Let's start with Hanne Blank."