Friday 13.3

MACKENZIE MOORE

March 14, 2020

I crawled into bed

with a rice beer

the shop owner

claimed tasted

“Light”

“Clean.”

I bought it before

we were told to go

home

Stay Home.

It made me queasy,

so cloyed with sugar 

that I put it down

rolled over

sobbed so hard

my chest buckled.

Concealer burned down

into my contacts

I didn’t wipe it

shouldn’t wear it

because they said

Don’t touch your face. 

I wish I would’ve let

someone fix me

five years ago

when I started to rust.

The emptiness settled

across my chest

an X-ray blanket

with no results.

My boyfriend

may call it soon—

I don’t know how we

can drag our leaking

sandbag

into this future 

anymore.

MACKENZIE MOORE is a television and podcast writer based on Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Man Repeller and Lunch Ticket, and she has forthcoming poems in the spring 2020 issues of Variant Literature and The Northridge Review. She believes bagels heal most wounds.