ADRENALINE FATIGUE by Robert Beveridge

How the heart skips like

a teenager after school

who’s saved all her cheese

slices for the past two

weeks in a perfect yellow

vinyl pile like a laughably

unconvincing stack

of counterfeit twenties

one might try to pass off

as the down payment

on a new Chevy

not because she wants

to put a down payment

on a new Chevy

but because the feel

of fake cheese product

with the occasional

mustard smear against

her skin is the best thing

she has ever experienced

so she assembles piece

by pasteurized processed

piece a suit of armor

in which she parades

in her room behind the locked

door like Ed Gein

in the skins of his victims

feeling just as invincible

as she contemplates

a move to Wisconsin

and all this just because

you sat down to watch TV

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Failed Haiku, Dreich, and Tarot Poetry, among others.