This dying rose smells like wet dog.
I can feel it panting through my fingernails,
stench floating over me, its particular brand of course hair
disintegrating into my ears.
I can taste the dark red
like the smell of expired wine.
Diana Gutierrez made me do this,
made me change the background of my iPhone
to this image of life.
What does it mean for a person to make us do something?
Puta, she muttered
As she was leaving.
A flea hopped onto my computer,
that’s why she left.
I killed it, come back!
I know that SpongeBob and Patrick totally fuck.
It’s a blue tickle of fact.
My mother told me to pick nothing
so I fly through a fan
and speak warped,
Come on Cori!
Get your shit together.
The curtain will rise
and here come the brides,
but only in a blank poster.
I have done nothing wrong and so I ask for forgiveness.
Unslam the doors and open a new can of original Pringles.
Dime algo en espanol,
Said her closed mouthed glasses.
The truth is I like rotted flowers
like a dog sleeping with one eye open.
Cori Bratby-Rudd is an eclectic writer from the Bay Area. As a recent graduate from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and a current MFA candidate in Creative Writing at California Institute of the Arts, she enjoys incorporating themes of emotional healing and social justice into her creative and non-fiction works. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, DryLand Lit Press, FEM News, Canyon News, Rainy Day Magazine, and Westwind Journal of the Arts. She recently received an editorial choice award in Audeamus’ Academic Journal for the best research piece.
Original photograph by BuzzFarmers.
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