Kristy Bowen
(dancing girl press & studio, 2023)
From pandemic life to social disintegration, collapsologies explores the costs, emotional and financial, of life in the last decade through the wreckage of horror films, capitalism, class warfare, politics, and tabloid headlines ripped not all that far from the truth.
I
Was Bigfoot's Love Slave
At first, we were happy in the woods. Pine sap
and endless
games of backgammon. How he'd roll
me into his
side while sleeping. The creep of moss
across the
floor over our bodies. The perks in dating
a secretive
man, the secrets hidden in plain sight. The dog
that
belonged to him, but didn't. The fog that gathered
when we
fucked, always on the floor. The women he loved
before, all
sirens and witches, and me, so human, So typical.
So angry
when mud stained the sheets and squirrels
nested in
the rafters. So happy to be adored, I'd wash
the cave
until my fingers bled. Squash the insects
that crawled
from his fur with my red heels, but still
he'd drag
the deer he'd hunted, bloody, back to our bed.
Sometimes
he'd hide in the closet to pretend he didn't exist.
The dog
would disappear for days.