by Sara Green

Ladies and Gentlemen, a walking cliche 

I’m barfing up the words you say to me, 

Down my mouth and right back out 

Soon is becoming a granted faster than 

The useless phrases clawing at the edges of my lips, in desperate hopes of spilling out, 

And I will let them. 

Helpless to the sheer power of my subconscious, 

Which is becoming my conscious faster than the soon is being taken for granted 

And oh my God, I'm taking everything for granted. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, a walking cliche. 

I’m bleeding out the things I hear, 

Through my calloused fingers and the ink of a leaky ballpoint pen that should’ve broken by 

now. 

I’m bleeding out faster than the roadrunners in an Arizona desert, 

Which I’ve only seen laying dead on the highways, falling prey to the very thing their title 

tells them they shouldn’t and 

Oh my God, I’m bleeding out fast. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, a walking cliche. 

Because I’m just trying to show you 

How I feel 

By becoming this stuttering, vulnerable fool who couldn’t stop rambling if the world 

depended on it, that would rather chuck herself into a black hole than walk to a class in 

silence with someone, 

That writes about all the grungey things that stupid teenage girls write about, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, a walking cliche. 

That is barfing up the words you tell her and bleeding out the things she hears and crying 

about roadkill in Arizona and 

always taking absolutely everything for granted.