APOLLYON

by | Issue #5, Poetry

0b1. 

hey, I know you! 
you lolling Jell-o eyes, your 
eyelids are heavy 

you spit 
a billion more phrases, you’re 
summoning mandelbrot, your shed 
is a rube machine, 
it whirrs and molts, you don’t 
sleep through the night, 
your sermons are petsmart, 
full of ferret bones 

your nightly dream, 
a boor girl, her tunnels 
feel like astroturf, she peeks 
at you through Bavarian mist, she looks 
at you with swollen eyes which rim 
purple around eyes a grain of rice 
she looks 
like your mom and you 
wake up 
in a puddle. 
It whirrs and molts, it 
whirrs and molts. 

you know well enough when you’re being oedipal to 
lean in–buy a seat and a surface with American money, buy
a Persian sword, build 
a temple of applesauce. your 
shed demands thumbs, 
I know you. 

0b10. 

You’re a remora on the side of a benny bus, you’ve impregnated baron sop. 

You’re 
smart enough to know that denial is a toothless dog, you are
charlottesville chew,
you are strong slavic man, 
you’ve pastoralized your nihilism, you live 
in a stroboscope of japanese pistols, your life 
is Gallipoli but sicker. 

You have a mouthful of Biafra, another 
swallow astringence. 
It whirs and molts, but you 
cannot, epoxy boy, sticky and prodigal. You hold 
your stomach in your mouth like a lolly, 
your heart is made of pudding, you want 
a disciple or two, 
a Jacob’s ladder of guile widows, with 
oil drum devotion, your shed 
is full of jet ski bones, 
you’re building apollyon. 

You are a body like any other body, full of tubes and baggies.

0b11. 

We’ve met before–you’re moistening 
at the sound of my voice, it’s sylvan, it’s literati, it’s faceless, this is the voice
of an auction pistol, it’s very expensive, it’s desert tacoma, it’s all night
engine, it hears you heating stouffers, it wants to eat your medications,
it wants to come in. 

0b111. 

You’ve rented a room between the thumbs of a teenager, 
you are bathing in her pupils, you want 
to juice her little body, 
she is playing diamond teeth samurai, she’s crossing 
one ten in a white altima, it is sprouting wings 
made of fog, she will not be around to watch you 
die. 

It shivers, its metastasizes, it molts and molts. 

your interactions are mannequin, they’re 
dog fights, you’re a staffordshire with swollen nipples, 
your name is blue goose, you put your mouth 
around them and masticate. 
it hums and whirs, it molts and molts.

0b101. 

your child wants to touch 
you, you are florida natural, you 
are quailing, you are mobius, you are orbeez, your 
knuckles swim in your bloating hands. 

you had a genius certificate, your child has its needs, it is 
ripping you apart, you are mommy’s favorite, you are daddy’s bag, you were never socialized,
your blood is citric, your body goes like gogurt. 
you’re free boyo, you’re borderless, you’re tampico, it’s the Always August.

0b110. 

you are rain, you are spattering 

you’ve written the 
world’s friendliest poem 
It probes the cities with its wickie eye 
the world is drenched in Tang 
how we wither like puddles 
how strange, it feels like spring.




Gia Kelliher is a 23 year old poet and fiction writer. Her work can be found in The Laurel Review, Expat Press, and Apocalypse Confidential. She is interested in dead malls, giallo, and insect politics. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her cat Boris.