julienning my hands, trying to
pickle nineteen-years-old among
white malt and “what’s your major again?”

yeah, seems like something
i would do.

people are poem ideas or bags of
undercooked potatoes clumping against
communal bathroom mold if
a short, zucchini-smelling woman
did not peel the walls each tuesday with bleach and
“ope, sorry! didn’t know someone
was still in there.”

this cucumber skin packs me
tight till summer when i scream it
off and mature at my mother’s discretion
into something more girly, less
oregano, less “do you
still believe in god?”
less “are you too
angry?”

keeping all this in four yellowed
jars, dilled under grandma’s cellar
because maybe i might forget which
scars were already there

and which ones are fresh cut.

Alex Carlson is currently a full-time undergraduate student at an Iowan college where they work part-time as a writing tutor. Some of the things they like best include green onions, cowboy hats, and pine trees. They’re an enneagram type eight and an INTJ (obviously a psychology major.) Make what you will of all this.