Jennifer Hollie Bowles

I’m like

Ayn Rand without objectivism,
hiking her skirt up, flaunting
for philosophy, all bottled with
bleach on the bathroom floor,
trained to use scissors and waxes.

I’m like Bukowski without liquor,
without wrinkles and ugly, the deceit
that makes men churn, crawl on their
knees, beholden to breasts and legs.

I’m like Dali without a moustache,
using tweezers like paintbrushes:
There is no Dali without a dick,
and I hate that.

I’m like Picasso without a lover,
taller and less alive, plastic,
the lonely body sprawled
on his chaise with pink
nipples and shaved thighs.

I’m like Van Gogh with a left lobe,
with my eye-candy sweaters and
low-rise jeans, I am ass
and limb, swirled and blurred.

I’m like Nietzsche without
“god” or “uber,” with panty-
hose and eye-liner, a painted
vacuous mug of conceptual sex.

I’m like Kurt Cobain without suicide,
his doll parts too, pale and buxom
with scratched voice and deflation,
even in the image of grunge,
I am make-upped, made-up, MADE.

I’m like Sylvia Plath with a good
Father, the Father that loves dresses
and tight jeans, who looks at me
out of his dick hole with praise:
They are all fathers and all
good when I am MADE.

I’m like Beauvoir
without Sartre,
existence,
or an ism.

Jennifer Hollie Bowles lives in Knoxville, TN where she distills the Moon.  Her writing has been accepted for publication in The Battered Suitcase, Oak Bend Review, Sein und Werden, Thieves Jargon, tinfoildresses, and Word Riot, among many others.  Jennifer’s first novel, Surreal Self, is seeking a sublime home.