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Kristen Brida

Kristen Brida's poetry has appeared in The Journal, Barrelhouse, Fairy Tale Review, Hobart, Whiskey Island, Pidgeonholes, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from George Mason University.

Diet Crisis


I did the dishes for the first time in nine days

But there were only two plates and five forks in the sink
And after I cleaned those

I just stared at the drain
For seven minutes and watched

The tap water gush its translucence and vomit

Soggy Doritos and charred egg whites

And scraps of Lean Cuisine dinners
And I watched them float

Like microbial shits blossoming in a petri dish

Or potential little things refusing to turn
To acid in my stomach
And then I hit the disposal switch

It was so nice

To just hear a machine

Pretend itself a body
With excremental capabilities
It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten

To thinking without words



The Blue Parts with Anthony Bourdain


Rowboat cozy

up with postcard


ocean. The kind color

with its sheer


sight transports salt

wrapped air


from water to blue

light of my television.


When our host swims deep

through the mouth-dark blue


for food, there is nothing

but sponges, reef rot, people


with cameras to pan.

A lack of earth-worth


film. A fisherman throws in

dead squids. They float around


our host, their shiny deaths

halo around him, boxed in ice


a little while, until

salt licks then eats ice exposes


and preserves the soft muscle

of the grocery dead. Our host lets


them float free

in a parody of breath


as they swallow all features.

Our host looks up to the light


sees hands deliver the ice.

Out host says “I”


so much it burns through

it, loses an antecedent.


Back at the blue light,

The fisherman rows to shore


to bash the squids

against rocks as children watch.


The fisherman tells them to soften

the squid’s skull to make its body


palatable raw.

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