Damage Control/Internal Doll House

I used to process and express myself out loud.
In journals, on paper, on screens.
Re-reading, revising, re-writing,
and sometimes deleting.
Now I often process inside my own head,
which turns me into a warped internal garden
growing dreams filled with hissing insects,
bittersweet birds, melting branches, conflicted
roots ripped out of the ground and thrown
in different boxes, bedroom drawers, body bags.
Some of my words never emerge from the inside.
I continually revise and then internally delete,
as if those thoughts never really existed.
Am I backtracking, giving up, or evolving
into something different (for better or worse or
indeterminate or becoming a giant termite or
approaching termination or…?)
My brain’s world can be a small roller coaster
ridden by sticky spider webs, spiders biting
their way out of flesh and then showing up on my face
like squiggles and wrinkles and proliferating debris,
merging past and present and future and fear
into a warped sort-of-dream/sort-of-reality
with assorted bundles of ripped off wings.

Juliet Cook doesn’t fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including “red flames burning out” (Grey Book Press, 2023), “Contorted Doom Conveyor” (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), “Your Mouth is Moving Backwards” (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), “REVOLTING” (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024), and “Blue Stingers Instead of Wings” (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, “Malformed Confetti” was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.