Zelda 2.0

I’m out of poetry.
I’ve run dry. what’s the use?
poems are just lies
papering over the holes
in my bones where
sadness lives.

I’ve run out of ways
to make this slow death
sound pretty. when
my mind collapses
in on itself like a dying
star, all that’s left is cold,
hard science. there’s no
dress glittery enough
to hide my hideous heart, no
drink strong enough
to make me forget
to hate myself, no
fairy tale magical enough
to let me come out
a decent human being,
so why pretend?

Zelda (and eight other women
who are not remembered
at all) died
in a fire at the sanitarium
aka asylum aka loony bin
because she had been locked
in a room
waiting to get ECT
after Scott took everything
she had, her very words
published under his name,
her own novel trash-talked
to death.

I’m a new Jazz Age
glamour doll. where’s my Scott?
come plagiarize my diary,
savage my self-esteem and then
abandon me. I’ll do it all
again, if you’ll only
pretend to love me
long enough
for me to get some art
out of my veins and onto
the page.