Something about the engineering of stairwells

makes you want to push someone down one.

Vertebrae snapping against all those

edges straight as rulers. Too violent,

eating salad with forks. Let’s use

our hands, you say. It’d be nice for balsamic

to congeal under my fingernails for once.

When I was in middle school

this popular girl I was obsessed with

watched a PETA video on YouTube

and went vegan, and I told my parents I didn’t

want a hamburger, thank you

or a glass of milk, thank you

and my dad said he read an article about a study that proved pea pods could communicate with one another.

My mom started crying.

Maybe her heart went cold blue

from all those pea pods boiling

on the screaming stove.

She went for a drive.