Ronnie Hibbert: 3 Poems
Compulsive Flossing
1
I cannot stand next to you or another member of your near-human species. You'll say something funny and I laugh so big you can see the coat of milky goopy envy on my tongue. I apply chapstick compulsively, I apply lip liner to my nose. Don't worry, I also think about things that matter, too, ya know.
You have god-given straight white teeth and, by the way, you can leave bite marks on anyone you want.
2
You have hair that just won't stop growing and a voice that cuts through the crowd like sirloin and, by the way, I hate your girlfriend.
3
I binge on love and peanut butter cups. No matter how many times I lock the door I know one day someone will intrude, find me under the covers, covered in chocolate. I tried to kick myself clean but, by the way, I'm not a cat.
4
You are underestimated and underweight. I make fun of someone who used to be my friend
and you say
Ronnie, he did ask you a stupid question but, by the way, maybe he just wanted to hear your voice.
Fishing Wire
My best friend says she's scared of ghosts. I ask her how she will avoid them when she works at a haunted house.
She asks her co-workers, 'what rooms should i never be alone in, where should i keep the lights on?' her co workers scream back,
'Where aren't the dead!?'
In the eyes of the statues that follow you—No. That one isn't real, that is a parlor trick, faces flipped inside out, no guts or gore.
In the girl standing at the end of the hallway—Yes! That one is real, she tugs your skirt and hair, she pushes the button that cannot under any circumstances be pushed, she is gone when you finally admit you see her.
In the animatronic that sings the voice of a dead man. That's what a ghost is right? An echo-shadow of a living thing, something resurrected in another worldly-metaphysical form. All animatronics think they are alive—all animatronics are resurrections. A voice box is a ouija board.
Ghosts in the machine
Did you hear someone ask you a question?
Ghosts in the machine
Something just asked you a question
Someone asked someone the same question seventy years ago—and every day since then,
and that is a ghost, an echo-shadow of a living thing.
And that is a ghost, a room to catch the echo and bounce it back forever and ever.
I'm seven and I’m watching the screensaver on the TV, everything is an echo-shadow.
Sun Bleached Teeth
Give me your best smile, I'll give you my best jokes. give me a pair of wings and a second of silence—
You all know the ending!
You said you saw my name with a semicolon and a parentheses next to it. They said my name so sweetly their teeth started to rot, fell to the floor at my feet, they didn’t even notice.
So I took the teeth home, all gray and yellow and filled with cavities. I fashioned them into a piece of jewelry, laid it as a crystal on a chain, spit and plaque and nerve endings still sticking to it.
And now, what if I came back and offered it back to them?
What do you think they would say about me then?
Oh, now you're telling me to be careful who I trust. You think I built the stage and lit up the spotlight?
You gave me the sun and a second of silence,
You knew the ending.
Ronnie Hibbert grew up in the valley of Los Angeles, and to this day cannot seem to get rid of her accent. She is an amateur photographer, poet, and home chef. She works at a theme park in Southern California and is finishing her bachelors degree. You can find her work and face on instagram @biologypsychology