Frankenstein’s Bride Develops Media Literacy
I slap myself awake, tap my little toes, hit the vape—I feel kind of like a girl again
and then again! I am on the treadmill of time wearing orange bike shorts
I still feel exactly like a baby I don’t know why I look like this
I like getting promotional emails because it makes me feel connected to the world
I am so loyal I will never hit the unsubscribe button I promise—
I am media-literate; my hemorrhoids are media-literate
Everyone who watches my Instagram stories gives a fuck about me
Everyone deserves a great-grandmother who made all the clothes she ever wore
I am kind of like this poem’s little blushing bride…
I am kind of like a girl whose dog kidnaps her in a minivan
throws her phone out the window and zooms her to the beach
I would like to deep-fry the planet on a skewer and dunk it in Teriyaki sauce
Mm, actually no—I would like to put my dog on a majestic throne
and allow her to rule the world and I would like to serve as her interpreter
I would like for someone to admit that they have taken me away
and then for that person to return me safely home
I would like for my friend to text me are you okay
I feel like there were some sad moments last night
so I can be like hello…all moments are sad…
Moments love to be sad like girls on the internet
It’s so easy to be unusual—it’s cheap!
I am kind of like a girl whose puppy dog hog-ties her and puts a bumblebee in her mouth
To be honest I am a girl who is feeling girl-adjacent this evening as usual
The kind of girl I am like is the one who is going to see Cocaine Bear
in theaters with Igor because it is five-buck Tuesday
The real-life titular cocaine bear is taxidermied in a gift shop in Kentucky
She died higher than any bear has ever been
You know, people who almost die feel way luckier
than people who never get close to it—
trees, for example, feel so lucky
For example, leaves falling down all around you
while you lay underneath a tree
is such an underrated feeling
Here’s to correct ratings in the new year!
and here’s to tradition, to resilience; here’s to me
I am kind of like Picasso’s Girl on a Ball
I am a girl just exactly like that!
A mannequin could tell I’m only trying to say
this same thing in a new way: this poem walks,
talks like a girl who is sexy and does not speak
in an annoyingly high vocal register
This poem's voice is low
and a little raspy–like Hank Voight
Death to Hank Voight! There can only be one of us
Here’s to sacrifice! Here’s to the sacrifices entailed in the making
of great art: you must put yourself in grave danger every day
and fuck with multiple Geminis
Death to the critics who say criticism has to exist in order for art to exist!
What, all of God’s creation isn’t enough? Here’s to all of God’s creation!
Here’s to being radiantly ill with the culture! Violently sick with ephemera!
Blowing chunks of timelessness! Here’s to the snake from Even Cowgirls
Get the Blues and here’s to the playing card in its mouth!
God damn it, here’s to the Queen of Spades!
You guys we are always forgetting
that we are literally right in the middle
of all of God’s creation
Let’s watch a sitcom about the trees. A family drama.
convicted liar, what is your relationship to the truth?
casey anthony says kernel of truth within the lie
like murder is a big bowl of popcorn—
pop!infectious!
pop!big brown eyes!
pop!pearls of real:
yes she worked at universal,
yes her best friend used to live
at the sawgrass yes her little
used to—casey anthony got famous because she killed
her performance as south florida’s fertile, lethal megan fox
and because she killed her toddler with duct tape and chloroform
there is a casey anthony
documentary now streaming on peacock
and thus a casey anthony
in thousands of middle-america living rooms
ms. anthony requires that her interviews take place in a rented house
because she takes her privacy seriously and because she has a roommate
whose privacy she takes very very seriously—
suppose it’s not a difference in values,
but a difference in priorities:
suppose dame casey does value human life,
just not very highly,
or at least not as highly
as she values her adult roommate’s privacy…
I want to smoke a blunt
with casey anthony’s extremely private roommate
I want to send an email
to casey anthony’s extremely private roommate
and find out what old girl’s like
when she comes home from the grocery store—
the people asking how can you party the week after
killing your daughter with duct tape and chloroform
don’t understand that after killing your daughter
with duct tape and chloroform
everything you do is done
after killing your daughter with duct tape and chloroform
I want to know what it’s like for worst mom ever
to go to the grocery store and buy hand soap
ten years after killing her daughter with duct tape and chloroform
casey anthony’s former best friend annie
has a blue bird with a red breast
carrying a banner that reads Caylee Marie
tattooed on her shoulder “because [caylee] deserves it”
a dead two-year-old deserves to be a bad tattoo
on casey anthony’s former best friend annie’s shoulder?
I’ve been picturing taylor swift on her million-dollar couch
watching the new casey anthony documentary
I am thrilled about the demise of taylor swift’s extremely private relationship
with that british blond guy because now I can set her up on a date
with casey anthony’s extremely private roommate
I wonder if casey anthony voted for donald trump
and what kind of shampoo she uses
I would love to know what kind of shampoo casey anthony uses
fifteen years after the whole
you know
killing her two-year-old with duct tape and chloroform incident
it could have been an accident—
shit!—pop!sorry—
casey anthony’s hair looks amazing in this documentary
casey anthony’s amazing hair in this documentary
makes it easier for me to set my own biases aside
and really think this issue through…
Isabelle Doyle is a Graduate Council Fellow and Truman Capote Literary Scholar at the University of Alabama. Her poems and stories have been published in Poets.org, The Los Angeles Review, Typo Magazine, Jersey Devil Press, Bending Genres, The West Review, Ghost Parachute, The Chiron Review, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere. Her epic poem O’Riley won the 2021 Jacar Press Chapbook Contest and was published by Jacar Press in November of that year. Her digital micro-chapbook Every Time I Fall in Love I’m Like a Cantaloupe Who Falls in Love With Someone Really Bad For Her was published by Ghost City Press in July 2023 as part of its Summer Series. She received the 2023 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize at the University of Alabama, first place in the 2023 Elizabeth Meese Prize in Creative Nonfiction, third place in the 2023 Jerome K. Phipps Prize in poetry, three Pushcart Prize nominations (2021 and 2022), a 2022 Best of the Net nomination, a 2022 Best Microfiction nomination, and a 2022 Best Small Fictions nomination.