PUNK PROSE: Flick the Clipper, Write for Ten, Eat Some Doritos, Fall Asleep and Dream of a Nicer Time by Lacey Cohen

 i like to say i’m not a poet and i still don’t think i am but it’s not because i don’t like poetry (which i still mostly don’t) but more likely because i’m afraid my words won’t be as good as they are when i write other things because when you write poetry every single word matters but when you write a story or a letter you’re able to think softer and hide behind a scene or a fake character that you say isn’t yourself but usually it is and you think the reader doesn’t know that so it’s less scary than writing ambiguous poetry

i get some of my best ideas when i’m high and i can never write when i’m high because i can’t articulate the idea as well when i’m high but i know it’s still going to be one of my best because i’m high and, sidenote, i hate that people use the word ‘high’ in reference to all drugs because when i say i’m high i only ever mean pot but when i read certain stories there are characters who are also high but they did hard, scary, addictive drugs that i would never even touch

i wish i didn’t get attached to people as easily as i do and i’m not only talking romantically i’m talking platonically just as well and i always get insecure that i love people more than they love me and i think most of the time i’m right

i forget that not everyone is depressed and then when i tell a zoloft joke and not everyone laughs i’m suddenly, brutally, unfortunately reminded that some people have minds that are just as healthy as their bodies

i get these bursts of inspiration sometimes and i have no idea where they come from but it’s like that exercise you do in a writing class where you have to write for an entire ten minutes without stopping even once so if you lose your train of thought or don’t know where to take your story next you have to just keep writing and it’s frustrating as hell but when i get those bursts i can do that exercise and it’s easy except i can never tell if it’s actually good or if it’s completely in my head

i wonder how many people loved her before me and also how many people will love her now that i’m gone

--Lacey Cohen