[I was born to be gigantic,]

I was born to be gigantic,
said the violet flower that derailed me.
this is a rumor, so there aren’t
any rules to go with it. I built its shape of pegs,
won’t take that lying down, my name is zero,
my name is nonce, my name is nobody, who the hell are you.
yesterday I tried to buy a joke.
I brought it to my home,
took it inside slowly like how you
come out of a bath. there was nothing new
to say about it. to make the violet speak to you,
just go crazy, said my second-grade art teacher
handing me construction paper, glue.
just go crazy, I say now to the flower,
engulfed as I was by her lesson. her lesson to
say more plainly the visual field. to draw to
the lowermost quadrant of the paper.
to draw upon my limits like ribbons of gas,
to “make these limits assets”
(to write about them in essays).
to see the ending from both sides,
so profound was my derailment.



Reprinted from Groceries (Fonograf Editions, 2025) with the permission of the publisher and author. All rights reserved.