I Am Not How This Is

I Am Not How This Is

The pillow here it talks to me and the things it says are things I can't repeat. The pillow it has a bad mouth. The pillow it once opened up and swallowed me and I slept for a night on the down that was inside of it. There was a penguin and an iceberg and what I found inside of the iceberg was a city named nowhere and what was inside that city was a diamond ring that someone had carved out for me from a thousand other diamonds that were imperfect. And on the inside of the penguin I found fish. The penguin had been eating fish. And the fish dead there were mocking me with their diamond eyes. Because diamonds are relative and penguins, they are something I never see. Out of the pillow and my head spinning. I am allergic to down. I need to get a new pillow because this one it has a dirty mouth and I am worried it may strangle me in my dreams.

--J. A. Tyler is founding editor of mud luscious and the author of SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press, 2009), IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press, 2010), and INCONCEIVABLE WILSON (vox press, 2010) as well as the chapbooks OUR US & WE (greying ghost), ZOO: THE TROPIC HOUSE (sunnyoutside), EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH (achilles), and THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (trainwreck press). Visit: www.aboutjatyler.com.