I Might Get the Jellyfish Haircut By Juliet Cook

The more absurd my buzz becomes

the better until I bang my head 

on the keyboard and don't remember

the lines I wrote the next day,

but that often happens anyway.

Anyway if I lie down right now,

then I'll unintentionally cause the black cat

to jump off the bed, because he will think

that I think I take precedence over him

even though I don't think any such thing.

My recent online research has involved

how to know if a cat likes you, 

but also poisonous jellyfish, 

inadvertently leading towards

a trending jellyfish haircut

combined with cancerous wigs.

If the cat follows me, does he like me

or does he hate me? Maybe 

I shouldn't have gone downstairs.

I can hear him breathing, but 

I don't know if he can hear me.

Juliet Cook doesn't fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including "red flames burning out" (Grey Book Press, 2023), "Contorted Doom Conveyor" (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), "Your Mouth is Moving Backwards" (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), "REVOLTING" (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024), and "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, "Malformed Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.