From “Toxin Tocsin! Or the Origins of Kelin Loe!” by Kelin Loe

Recently, I farted so specifically and powerfully that my body rose off the driver’s seat.

AIR FALLING OUT IS A CONSTANT REMINDER OF THE OCCUPIERS OF SPACE.

I like to help my husband pee. He does not need this help. I hold toilet paper in front of him and watch the urine rush out and DESTROY it.

Let me tell you the differences between men and women. For every woman, THERE IS A WOMAN OUT TO DESTROY HER.

My husband flushed the toilet and the water ran black. This is the only time I suspected my husband of believing in ghosts.

The world does not need more dopey men.

I DO NOT DEAL IN BROKEN MEN.

I broke my hymen over water.

Clearly I’ve looked my vagina in the mirror.

In tenth grade, Heather returned to French class and told me THERE IS NO BABY, KELIN. Apparently she PEED IT OUT.

My husband checks his blood on his glucometer, and I check my blood on the toilet paper.

Later, Heather attempted to turn my friends against me.

The only time I saw a baby fall out was seventh grade health class. I thought that the hips dislocated.

I have never seen miscarriage blood.

But I can tell you that anus blood is the same color as hymen blood. BLUSH AGAINST THE WATER, BLUSH AGAINST THE PAPER.

I like to find other things for my husband to pee through. Like handle of the kettle. And the iron. If I was not allergic, I would use bagels and doughnuts again.

Deeply bored in deep summer, I took pictures of my husband wearing Sarah’s short, drawstring Grinnell shorts. He would wear them to do house work and to drink beer.

WHICH SIDE HAS THE TESTICLES? was the appeal for me.

He was emaciated. The pictures were too disturbing to text.

We lay around a lot.

One night I wanted to become blood brothers, and I ran for the paring knife.

Either he was chicken shit, too sick, or I wasn’t manipulative enough.

I HAVE NEVER FALLEN OUT OF A BOAT.

I HAVE FALLEN OFF a boat. Denny, the skipper, pushed me off. I did not have a SCUBA license.

PAYING ATTENTION DURING SCUBA LESSONS IS A VALUABLE THING TO DO.

My air tanks pushed me down. Nitrogen suffocation. Butterfly breathing.

That year Nick died diving in the brown Mississippi. I peed all over that ocean, but I would not die there.

I lost my virginity off a different boat four years later.

Several months before I lost my true virginity, we were smoking and eating tacos at my husband’s friend’s apartment in Dinkytown. This apartment had a girlfriend in it already, making salsa, so I had share the male attention.

SHARING MALE ATTENTION IS ONLY EXCITING WHEN THE OTHER WOMAN HAS DIFFERENT SKILLS.

I tripped on the rug and sliced my Achilles tendon with my toenail. A lot of blood gushed out and I didn’t feel it. I said:

THIS MUST BE THE WAY TO LOSE ONE’S VIRGINITY.

Losing is a falling out.

TO LOSE IS TO FALL OUT.

The absence of an occupier is falling out.

The presence of an occupier is falling out.

YOU MUST CHOOSE WHETHER TO BE ON TIME OR TO MASTURBATE AND BE LATE AND I FELL OUT.

The doctor asked if my husband was familiar with his situation, and started discussing treatment.

My husband had peed in a cup, and been called back to the doctor’s office with deadly blood sugar. He was only familiar with that part.

POETRY IS A SIMULTANEOUSLY CORRECT AND INCORRECT ANSWER TO EVERYTHING.

When he called to tell me he had juvenile diabetes, I was wet in my own blood, already crying and trying to CHANGE MY CLOTHES CLEANLY.

What is for dinner?

POETRY.

Describe your most recent stool.

POETRY.

That Christmas I looked up a list of suggested presents for diabetics. The internet recommended tea and cheese.

Recently, a pamphlet titled “How to Be a Friend to Someone” with my disease advised not to make fun of farting.

My worst fart was drunk at a friend’s wedding in Miami. That week beans came with every meal.

I tried to breathe the whole thing in before it ambled across the table.

Mike, a man who has microwaved a dead hamster, raised his voice above the conversation: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. THIS IS THE WORST SMELL I HAVE EVER SMELT.

I asked my husband if I could touch his dingleberries.

He leaned over and explained what “dingleberries” are.

Rabbits leave nutrients in their tiny shits and eat them later.

I have never had a growth spurt.

He says some of his favorite jokes are when I don’t know the terms invented in basements by boys in fifth grade.

Perhaps if I could eat my shit later, I would not be so short, I could fall up.

The psychologist asked how often I say SEXUALLY INAPPROPRIATE THINGS.

How often I leave a mess in the bathroom.

How often I cancel plans.

How often I lay around the house.

How often I fall out, over and everywhere.

There is a movie about a spelling bee. A girl, an orphan, perhaps a refugee, is taken in by some suburboes.

She wins the spelling bee. To pee, she climbed, feet on the seat, and stood tall.

In China, I shat in many holes, troughs, thrones.

An anus close to the surface shits a pile. An anus far from the surface extends a shit.

Like blood spatter, a circle for a drop, a line at an angle.

A TOILET IS AN ANGLE.

A log, a stool, is a Western phenomenon.

IF A SHIT IS STUCK, THERE ARE MORE WAYS TO SHAKE IT LOOSE THAN SUBURBO MOTHERS TEACH THEIR SUBURBO DAUGHTERS.

Kelin Loe is the author of These Are the Gloria Stores (Factory Hollow Press, 2014) and the chapbook The Motorist (minutesBOOKS 2010). Recently her work has appeared in iO: A journal of New American Poetry, Noo Weekly, and jubilat. She lives in Northampton, MA