every time I get a new job I case the place I’ll rob it in fiction for a small amount of money because that would be so funny and I’ll do it for a not so funny reason because that would be brilliant like an academy award movie starring a sitcom actor I’ll have to change the narrative change the enby to a cis to a white to a man
like a Seth Rogen or Bill Hader type he’s so good in that show about the actor who’s also a hit man we can typecast him different no longer Stefon hands up instead of over the mouth you know what I’ll rob it in reality I work in a dispensary now I could use a way to relax
I sit in the vault hoping to find inspiration but I can’t stop thinking of poems every poem is a death every poem is a rebirth fiction is for the middle I’ve forgotten how to write it I think of Jericho Brown maybe I’ll write verse more narratively “in the beginning. blackness” I love anything religious I’ll forget crime and stick to god poems besides if I steal from here it’s not like the last joint fast food managers watch you steal time and fresh fries but here we watched an hour lesson on what happens if you get caught
it took me two hours to finish the lesson because my thoughts are always fusing together in the beginning god said let there be taxes let there be fines and jail time I’ve never been good at taking anyway I’m not a conqueror in the way I’m meant to be plus the dispensary demands compliance and I’m great at that Ella Enchanted was written about me obedience is first nature all the boundaries are set by whomever else needs them the voice saying “do as you’re told” made euphoria impossible
but maybe happiness is inside a CBD bottle I wouldn’t know for sure but my coworker called it a big breath so okay
I’ll write the movie about a black not girl hiding in the vault with a map and a plan Solei’s Free oil spray in their back pocket
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Victoria Mbabazi is an MFA candidate with a concentration in poetry at NYU. Her work can be found in The Puritan, CV2, Feels Zine, Bywords, Untethered Magazine, Grain, and Release Any Words Stuck Inside You Volume 2. Her poetry placed second in The Hart House Review contest and her work has been shortlisted in Plenitude’s Flash Fiction contest and long-listed in Room’s Poetry contest. Her first poetry collection “chapbook” is coming out with Anstruther Press in January 2021.
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image: Stephanie Jacobs
Rejection Letters 