THERE'S NO AMERICAN BEACH YOU LIKE

I'm a troubled genius and that is why I need
the ice cream. Melting down in the bathroom
after falling on accident into her nudes.
Molten me slides down the drain and comes
up another shower, the surprise attack
you replay so often it splits the universe.
Just a regular monster with too many sick beats. 
I take braids away from she who shouldn't braid.
I build a nest of small fingernails.
It is a prudish and puritanical nest, that's not the same
as pure but I am. Listen to my brilliant beat!
Mottled by cavity, marbled by overgrowth,
crusted in the bleached sugar I take to sleep.

CHATEAU MARMONT BUT FOR FREE

Diagnose me, interleaving
the peppers in my teeth.
I try to let lay my passive nature
but I need to get given the loot.
Hold cursed coins in my hair,
darn stockings from gold spiders
in the bungalow where I dreamed my master
piece and lost it over a morning's gallon.
Hammocks are wonderful for the swaying
purgatorial aspiration of suspense.
Neither here nor there but there
and for peanuts, closing
my throat as I swallow the world.

OH GOD I JUST WATCHED A MAN

set different metals on fire and that was his whole "set."
Moreover I've seen him do it all before!
I'll never be alone, too many people
do it badly and I'm too self-ashamed to do bad.
Books > "music" because no one ever reads
40 minutes of fire. I'm just trying
to drunk mindmeld with my online friends
order a chocolate cocktail and live
through the snow squalls, unobtrusive
thoughts on constant flame. Crop top
in the chimney flue, burning
marshmallows in honor of the dead
famous drummer. Some day I'll jiggle
my feet so fast I flare. Earlier this other
customer said don't you come in here
with your kid? My kid! I cackled! There's no kid!
And there never will be! And that! Was my solo set!

Sadie Dupuis is the guitarist, vocalist & songwriter of rock band Speedy Ortiz. She's also the producer & multi-instrumentalist behind pop project Sad13. Sadie heads the record label Wax Nine, has written for outlets including Spin, Nylon, and Playboy, and holds an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst. Mouthguard, her first book, was published in 2018. Find her online @sad13.