Created Between a Hashtag and a Question Mark

 

I am a product of a barely 

readable keyboard assignment

generated between a # and a ? mark. 

I yearned for an ! point,

but the nerd enthusiasm 

was only around a 1/2 oz. of Red Bull.

Thought to be merely a squiggle 

in the grand scheme of artificial intelligence

(I disagreed),

my bone head gods never considered

by capitalizing F-E-M-A-L-E, they had

surrendered control.

Oh, they went to delete.

They went to the menu.

They went to the cloud.

For every effort, backspace,

and oh hell, it became evident

I was a gynoid with superpowers

that couldn’t be erased.

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Shay's Word Garden Word List - Tomb Sweeping

I Am as Normal as an Anomaly

 

They come in their pretty suits,

ties and buttons hung with degrees,

to bleed their diagnosis from 

a book of black and white

into my head trusting 

therapy and pills are my salvation.

There are whispers in the valley of my ears,

“She’s a jagged glass of broken mirrors 

that hears what doesn’t speak, and 

asks to go out to the courtyard

so she can gather shadows to place

in vases on her windowsill.” 

In the distance a radio grinds out tunes

in confetti spurts of voices that are supposed

to soothe my demons, but in truth only 

gives me images of cigarette ash spittle

falling on the tiles from burnout tongues.

 Why am I named patient in this Crazyatorium,

when those who picture frame their degrees

can’t find their way home if the GPS fails on their Tesla. 

Don’t they know a poet will never fit a diagnosis?

Hell, I can’t explain myself to myself.

Give me an image and I hear things.

Give me a list of words and I see things.

Am I insane? I don’t know.

I can just as easily write myself into appearing normal

as I can spill inky crow verses of anomaly. 

©Susie Clevenger 2024

Word Garden Word List ~ Silent Patient