Unhinged

Desperation
is the goth cousin of zany,
zany is mania’s
slutty little sister,
and the tiny producers
living behind my eyes
are having a hard time
pinpointing which role
to type-cast me into.
At the roundtable,
they ask what it would
even mean to be hinged—
like a portal instead
of this open hallway living.
They ask if, without these pills,
I would assume the position
of a universal remote
connecting to nothing—if,
without this overestimation
of my ability to control,
the demons of divine femininity
would humble my own personal lore.
But! The forsythia bursts open
like popcorn,
the birds are acting
in their own spring-type
unhinged way, and we all
smell the headache
on the breeze.
I’m advised that
without tethering
my emotions
to embarrassment,
I’ll once again
lose that twisted ankle
of human relations
and never find it again

no matter how many times
I click my heels together

Emily Hunerwadel
Emily Hunerwadel
Emily Hunerwadel is the author of the chapbook Professional Crybaby, selected by Kyle Dargan for the Poetry Society of America’s 2017 Chapbook Fellowship, and Peach Woman, selected by Doublecross Press for their Bound-Together contest and published alongside Zoe Tuck’s The Book of Bella. They won Columbia Journal’s 2019 Fall Poetry Contest, judged by Monica Sok, and their work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets, Bustle, Fonograf Editions, Vassar Review, Massachusetts Review, Quarterly West, and Palette Poetry, among others. Hunerwadel holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Born and raised in the deep south, they work as a book designer and writer in Western Massachusetts.

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