Rules for Living

Now, your job is to turn the scary things silly
It is exhausting and 
vaguely patronising 

Do you know how hard it is to chit chat at a social event 
while picturing smashing the bowl of your wine glass and driving the sharp stem into your
throat?

What have I been reading? Oh, nothing highbrow      And  
                    I’ll definitely check out that movie                                  And 
                    How is your public service job going under this right-wing government?
Do you know how hard it is to puncture a throat with a glass shard that has turned into a
gummy worm?

How hard it is to take yourself seriously while drowning with giant cartoon fish swimming
by?

Your mind has turned into a game of whack-a-mole
One part of your brain keeps popping up with new methods of destruction and you have to hit
it with a different part of your brain
           whack!                       whack!                      whack! 
The rubber mallet of your imagination flails through the air and lands with a thump
Again and again and again and again

And you think to your thoughts
‘How do you like me now??’
Huh?
Can you like me 
now?

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Rose Peoples grew up in Te Awakairangi. She now lives in Pōneke, where she works in Māori land law. Her poetry has previously been published in Mayhem, Starling, Cordite, and Mimicry.