"Nothing Better" • The Postal Service (by Romy Rhoads Ewing)

i am only detail-oriented in pursuit of ruining myself

i wonder if loving me was like learning or forgetting

how to ride a bike. i want to be one of the boys

but also get a laugh when i call myself 

that—i want to invade the mind with both

my physicality and my mind, if that’s not

too much to ask—i want to be understood enough

to be remembered and elude enough to disappear

into the smoke—maybe an 80/20 split 

not not a showgirl if only by merit of existing

i believe in things like “the universe” 

hope that doesn’t turn you off 

i kill time making trouble for myself 

i am filled to the brim with something alkaline 

looking for someone to make it hurt again

looking for your abrasion, your acid, 

pain by anything but my own hand, 

freaking my cousin out with 

how many pictures i take in her house 

three dogs and a cactus older than me

i worry i’ll forget what i want

and no one ever says this city

will eat you alive 

it’s more the other way around

and i think i’d like to be found

footage.

Romy Rhoads Ewing writes from Sacramento, California. Her work has been published in HAD, Bullshit Lit, Oyez Review, & more. She edits poetry and nonfiction for JAKE and can be found at romyrhoadsewing.xyz