Poetry
February 2022
2 Poems by Lucia Gallipoli
You seem like a person and not a robot (in a good way).
By Lucia Gallipoli
February 5, 2022
1
It’s 10 pm—Do You Wanna, Uh?
It is so much easier to be turned on at night
when the restaurant lighting is ooo la la
and my brain is dim;
that time of dark
when looking under my bed as an adult
feels necessary until I realize
I couldn’t stop a killer anyway
so I fall asleep like, Fingers crossed!
which is, going back
to the beginning of this poem,
the opposite of what I’m doing
with my legs in the restaurant
or wherever the background
is increasingly soft focused while
he’s impressing me by saying
So... little using So... many words
and when he guides me across the street
with his hand grazing my back
I don’t even think about saying
Believe it or not, I navigate sidewalks
every day without your help just fine
and when we get to his apartment
I certainly don’t think,
I mean, what else would I be doing?
or, You gonna clean the table we just ruined
before eating off it tomorrow?
because I haven’t realized I’m bisexual yet
and this seems like it will be a funny story,
maybe, one day...
2
The Internet Is a Group Text With the World
Everything is funny at midnight.
Dumb tweets are dumber—
Every post im like … ugh … yes.
Furrowing my brow and frowning
until I’m scared of my own reflection.
EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!
I look at my legs and feel like a mannequin
but not in the way I want to.
“Whose legs are those?” I think.
But is that crazy.
My BOYFRIEND in a HAZE OF LOVE
reassures me I have good legs
as I inspect myself in the mirror in his apartment
that came labeled for him—EL ESPEJO.
The mirror is comically unflattering
and makes me hyper-focused
on the collarbones that appear
on my Instagram feed.
I want to look like my Explore Page, so,
I [buy] cute things… temptation around every corner.
The Internet is dangerous
but not for the reasons they told me when I was a kid.
It’s mostly just typing Etsy into my search bar,
which is ultimately how the modern woman seeks out
financial mistakes.
I want to be authentically Cool,
like I didn’t spend five hours in a row trying to curate my Wishlist,
like this dumb little floral tissue paper 1950s rag just fell into my lap.
You seem like a person and not a robot (in a good way).
I make my hobbies into a chore (exhausting)
but when I take my meds and get in bed
I’ve never been more awake in my life.
I refresh the same three apps
expecting something to be different
for thirty minutes
What a riot!
I think.
In a good way.