Kate Aschoff
Ego / Death
I’m such a fucking god!!! / golden and growing and alive / full of fire that’s ready to burn / could take your whole house down in 23 seconds / full of all this temptation / when you want it so bad, you feel it in the marrow / your lymph nodes swollen for me / I watch myself in a dusty floor-length mirror / eat it up, each arch and pull / don’t need to beg / don’t need to plead / got it all right here / you can come to me
I’m a platinum blonde girl on a dance floor / cause it’s easy to want what you can’t have / the threat of getting it can’t kill you in the bathroom / all tension, no climax / all bullshit, no happy ending / do you like it like that? / shoulders out, crop top on / twirling through the facade
I’m not the man or the island / I’m the place between, the part before you get the thing you need / the lowest rated season of your fave show / never with you, never without you / taking muscle relaxers for my heart / becoming my own arch-nemesis / playing every part except the one that’s actually mine
I’m an untouchable sexy art bro baby / no wake-up calls, cause no one’s coming to save me / the pulse I feel is my own / clocking in for insanity hours 9-5 / it’s all too traumatic to even put into words / do not disturb, do not reply
I’m stuck in my head / I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I'd love you to love me. / in my memories I am gasping for air, but there is none / and no one is coming to help me / sometimes fantasy no longer fills me up / i can swim and dance and sleep but the spiral always pulls me back in / could kill my ego but even the universe doesn’t want to connect
I’m so tired / If I begged, if I said please / cried as loud as I can / why / why is it still not enough / enough, for you / for you to come / and love me
Kate Aschoff (they/them) is a multimedia artist and poet based in Pōneke. Kate has poems published in Bad Apple, Overcom, Nagology: an exercise in mattering, and in a series of self-published zines. This year they are writing their first book of poetry.