I don’t wanna be medicated
I wanna eat your face!
I want MAO noninhibitors.

The shrinks said my brain shows
female schizophrenic neuron patterns
and they wanna fix them.
But they’re mine, all MINE.
Keep your hands off my hysteria, my brain.

Here in the bathroom I could slash my wrists
less messily than in the kitchen.
Or drown in the tub
(but it’s too shallow).

Red lipstick orange pink black.
Shimmer shimmer shimmer!
All shades for my mouth which must not speak the truth.

Lipstick is magic.
My mouth is magic,
so must tell the truth.

Here I raze my face and leg hair,
apply concealer to my bloated eyes to conceal my real thoughts.
Stare into the mirror of my life
the life not reflected back by your “real” world.
Scrubbing the toilet of my life that always backs up
and doesn’t flush shit.


Lorraine Schein (she/her) is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Scientific American, and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press. Her book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, is out now from Autonomedia.