WHEN YOU TELL PEOPLE I’M SENSITIVE,
I WANT TO KILL YOU
by Julia Watson

But it was you who showed me
videos of bunnies burrowing with dust-
brown ears, the one with the wombat
chewing pumpkin rinds, the gray-
snout beagle, blanket-bundled, wagon-
plopped, owner parading him
through the world one last time. So what

if I cry from happiness, cuteness
overload, if I curl in our blanket
with the Sunday scary despair
that I will die & you will die
& our old dog Annie will too?

Who is going to push our wagon
around Inman Park?

Darling, I will choose you
through each coffin
I dig when you irk me
to no end, each slimy noodle
from the first meal you cooked. Heckle you
through botched haircuts,
the lovefights & the hatefucks,
every basil plant we eventually kill

till I fall asleep, tears like old sweat
braided into my bangs. True,
I’m an associative sociosensitive
lover & you are a disregarding

devoted dilettante & Annie is snoring
in the perfect way she does.

Julia Watson earned her MFA from North Carolina State University. Her works have been published in The Shore, Voicemail Poems, LEON Literary Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, among other journals. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her grumpy dogs. You can read more of her work at juliawatsonwriter.com.