Marta Owczarek - Eat Your Orange Like an Apple

eat your orange like an apple
stretch your fingers till the snap
oh, on a pretty fucking day
when the skies are dripping grey

laugh at scowls you receive
keep your face all nice and sweet
do not let it get to you
that these looks are really true

surely, they cannot see through
the disguise you’ve put on you
fast-paced walk and stomping feet
defeaning the burning grief

defeaning the poet’s voice
“still persuade us to rejoice”

***

eat your orange like an apple
sliding down the bars of clay
when the ladder, like a snake
shakes you off eternal grace

swallow grounds when coffee-drinking
let them sink into your skin
from the inside, double layer
blocking out the sunlight rays

drown your liver in thick blood
a black, heavy winter coat
give your heart electric shocks
so the beating won’t just stop

smog & saturate your lungs
reconsider fear of heights
leaning out of 12th floor window
watching Broadway sink in dust

give cab drivers middle fingers
shut lift’s doors in someone’s face
top it up with some loud music
and with that retreat to bed

stay there for nine million seconds
levitate, unhook your arms
do not notify your friends
disappear, don’t speak again

slide into another room
fill the crack in someone’s wall
concretize in people’s clothing
melt yourself into their thoughts

sprout long roots from both your feet
let grass grow from rotten soil
have them step on you, and jump
stumble, bounce off, run, recoil

sleep, and have a go at saying
how much time forever is
just how often is perchance
what the devil a dream is

do they hold your coat in hell
when they welcome you aboard
is that furnace burning bright,
where the tiger’s brain came from

follow in a spiral motion
to the ninemost of the doors
speak to other broken souls
of damnation, of disgrace

reemerge on the clear surface
covered in red sea-weed strands
crawl in mud towards the shore
of the hills of Chankly Bore.