ohlee

i haven't given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in kentucky, imagining how agreeable i'll be-
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire-
all these needs met, then unmet again.
when i was a kid, i was excited about carrots,
their spidery neon tops in the garden's plot.
and so i ripped them all out. i broke the new roots
and carried them, like a prize, to my father
who scolded me, rightly, for killing his whole crop.
i loved them: my own bright dead things.
i'm thirty-five and remember all that i've done wrong.
yesterday i was nice, but in truth i resented
the contentment of the field. why must we practice
this surrender? what I mean is: there are days
i still want to kill the carrots because i can.

21, she/her