moving day
I have to put all my pieces // into boxes and get out // of town what a tragedy // to go from one house // to the next what a nightmare // to see my bare mattress // what a disaster to carry // everything with me // what a catastrophe to be // steeped into the walls // selfstuck in each house forever // when someone’s always there // at the threshold waiting // to lock the door behind me
driving thru taco bell
I pull into you / on my 13th hour / driving taco bell / you hand me yr meat / n I don’t ask questions / like what are you or / what am I / doing taco bell I am / fulfilling my great needing n / I have never been more / in love than I am right now / w yr slop on my cheek / n I don’t think / of my mother / pulling into you taco bell / after she drove 3 hrs / to pick me up / from a bathroom floor / bc I was too sick to move / myself n I begged her no no no / not taco bell / but she was full of needing / n her needing took the wheel / n when yr meat entered / the car window taco bell / I ran out / n puked behind a bush
OLIVIA MUENZ holds an MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University, where she earned the Robert Penn Warren Thesis Award in prose and served as an editor for New Delta Review. She is the author of the chapbook Where Was I Again (forthcoming, Essay Press). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill Journal, Anomaly, Denver Quarterly's F I V E S, The Boiler, and elsewhere. She currently teaches at Louisiana State University. Find her online at oliviamuenz.com.