Two Poems - takahē

Patient Notes / All My Therapists Keep Trying To Rent Me 1 Bdrm Apartments

Sitting in the office of the new therapist who used to be a landlord, she has the voice of my actual landlord, who won’t stop breaking into my apartment, and the mannerisms of my future mother-in-law, and I start to worry the universe is trying to explain something to me, is there a word for the fear of archetypes?

Sitting on the couch of the therapist who is currently a landlord but no longer my therapist, picking seed beads off an embroidered pillow with surgical precision. I turn her into my mom and it only takes a year or two before she’s screaming at me over the phone, is there a word for the fear of whatever the hell that was?

Sitting in the office of the new therapist, former landlord, the sweaty underbelly of my thighs glued to the faux leather couch, listening to her say well, you pay for the weather and your labels don’t have to define you like some kind of mental-health-real-estate-agent 2-for-1 special, is there a word for the fear that the universe is fucking with you?

January

In the forgotten scrap wood pile behind the house,
each piece of lumber swells with the rains
and warps as they dry, and me, I’m swelling every
single time I step onto the scale, all because of
a little butterfly, embedded in the skin of
my throat (or so the doctor says) and it’s swelling
also (or so she says), and I never get out of bed,
I just let the rain pour over me, and I swell up
real good, getting high in my pajamas and ignoring
that little butterfly, and all the other crap,
and you might think that’s stupid, or lazy or
probably both, but what you don’t understand
about water damage is this—you don’t
actually have to deal with the warping
until the rain is done, & the wood dries out.

Hana Damon-Tollenaere is a biology student and occasional writer, who lives by the beach with her girlfriend and a variety of reptiles and amphibians. Her published work can be found at hanadamontollenaere.carrd.co.