SPEAK

There are so many Speaks in your gut

Speaks beyond bacteria colonies

that power your good Terminator self

Speaks that wanna toss your intestines into your throat

and climb up and out through your mouth.

Your gut germs gossip about your Speaks

they whisper louder than they think:

There's a soap opera in your belly

and in that one script the Speaks died

but you know soap operas

full of all that zombie shit

being all like, "Surprise! Just kidding. I'm alive.

I was just wearing a wig so you didn't know it was me."

But the good Terminator, you are naked

when you travel time. The present is

always the past

maybe. The Speaks know

the moment you are trying to find

and will let you know when to stop finding.

Jessica Rowshandel (they/them): chaotic good, failed yo-yo champion, failed tabloid writer (specifically features about UFOs, extraterrestrials, and/or the social complexities of being a mixed-species-carbon-based-multi-verse-life-form -- a topic close to their heart). Failed as in "Yea but they don't even know how to yo-yo. They can't walk a dog to save their life!" and "They haven't even slid through a wormhole with Jerry O'Connell. What kind of multi-dimensional investigative reporter are they?" Jessica is also a nonbinary Afro-Taíno Puerto Rican + Persian writer, visual artist, musician, and Earthling. Their creative writing has been published in Fever Spores: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs, Mid-Level Management Literary Magazine, beestung, and others. For more information please visit jessicarowshandel.com. Twitter: @JRowshandel.