E.B. Schnepp
@ebschnepp.bsky.social
389 followers 252 following 221 posts
Poet, cryptid, featured in Poetry Daily, work in Iron Horse, Mid-American Review, American Literary Review, and more. ebschnepp@weebly.com Chapbook: Blueberries Stain Like Blood Available from Bottlecap Press Features
![A river is a river is a street is a girl
is a girl dead by the side of the road [you know
she’s dead, have you ever seen anyone that shade
of blue and unblinking] and still you can’t pull over
for anything, for gas, for her because you don’t
want to be the next girl-shaped object hazarding
on the side of the road. We are filling the ditches
like deer, bloated bodies in November,
who run from gun crack and trophy hunger
to find something that can only feel worse. The news
that likes to go into all the gory details.
The news wants you to know how she died
terrified. Eyes wide, bleeding from all the ways
a man forced himself between her and the morning. And I know
better than to feel safe even alone in my apartment, keep my blinds
half-mast. Listen for footsteps in the linoleum, on the stairs,
in the dark wonder once I can finally shed my body
for simulacra what new violence will be created to remind me
some days I am only the chalk outline of myself.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreiduv3u3toww22ajyrxpy72kr6w5yoeua4ucwbjlxoabekordk2wsm)
![eating taco bell in the middle of a burger king drive thru just to feel something
I’m going to dive bars; collecting bathroom stall numbers,
starting to not be joking when I tell you I’m going to start calling.
I admit I’m bitter, wanting to skip the awkward “will you be my murder” part
and go right to the couch, take out, tv flashing 90’s nostalgia.
but, the only burrito here in months has been me; blanket wrapped,
soggy in the middle. I’ve never been good at living, anxious
on my best days, agoraphobic on my worst, but I could be tempted
by cheese to unfurl—Sara says she’s never been hung over enough
to eat taco bell and I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s drunk food,
not hangover food, because in this case I too am unqualified,
sober for all the wrong reasons. terrified of what it’d feel like
to let the rubber bands under my skin snap. I stick to little rebellions,
dipping chicken nuggets in fire sauce. every bad idea another
in a series of intrusive thoughts. and this is no different. you see
I’m not here for a good time, a long time, for the one that got away,
long lost love — hello, no you don’t know me,
but for an hour or two on a tuesday night I loved you forever,
just thought you ought to know. tonight I’m grateful
I’ll never wake up to another’s body, and this too is love—
I love the idea of you so much I never want to startle awake to you,
open eyed and blue. in every situation let there [still] be breath.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreid5tmlnypjza26vsnhsrbeybfffkt37id7s556w7oaw5ecrp5b2ui)
![[poem page 1]
You know some people never make it out of this scene
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol, though Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol anymore, is Angel cosplaying
as Spike in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that Joss Whedon didn’t
write because we all know he didn’t have the balls, couldn’t imagine love
outside of who could hurt the worst, so irreparable they still woke
cold sweat, still feeling hands, eyes. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer was never
about Buffy the Vampire Slayer at all, it was about redeeming
Giles. Redeeming Angel. Proving the thesis
that the good guy got the girl in the end and when that didn’t sell
cancelling the show. Hiring the Nice Guy to rewrite the story.
Correct all the things that went wrong, there was no other choice.
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol because Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol anymore, Billy Idol is William
Michael Albert Broad an Englishman who exists still, Peter Pan
playing old favorites for those who still believe.
I choose not to believe. Leave him frozen in 1982 and don’t look too close
knowing he was a rockstar in 1982 and if I looked there’s bound to be plenty
I can’t love him for. Leave him the last note of “White Wedding” hanging in the air
and laugh at how nothing’s changed, he’s just the same as Greensleeves’
anonymous/lost/forgotten author, filled with rumors
it was written by King Henry, the one with all the wives, for his second
wife, a hard fought seduction. The original fuck boy anthem.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreiaad2oypm6cntvnst4x2ntcufaybj6pnepgsntjp4mybdxqrctpka)
![[poem pt1]
If You’re Hungry You Will Eat
Everything was rotten, displayed
in its finest furs, across counters
slick with sweetness from ruptured
tomato skins, bruised peaches.
The blueberries though hadn’t burst,
had only shrunk in on themselves, dried
to small pebbles; sad signifiers
of what they once had been, cascading
over table edge and counter to pool
on the floor below. Beyond all of this,
beyond the scent—heavy
and a wrong kind of sweetness
that caught in the lungs, scratched
along the throat—there was a scurrying.
Rivers of ants flowing from fruit
and their leavings to baseboard cracks,
into ancient drywall, the spaces
they made home on the boundaries of my own.
When you’re hungry you will eat
and any that get in the way of your open jaws,
you will eat them too. In that place
I lowered myself to my knees,](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreiearnng3pdipz3inhnvrawtkoerkxr563nlhleujkg4pz77drdape)
![[poem pt2]
my mouth to all that was there and festering.
Let the spoiled, the remnants, the my-eyes-
were-bigger-than-my-mouth spill out
and down to stain skin, mottle it red
with what might have been strawberry
turned muddied brown, a could-be blood splatter.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreiexq5cvwy5kjh5c4sjscn7fl6vanqo7zg6whmknojhmz57pa67ivy)
![her name was
[redacted] record skip on the tip of my tongue but not the back of my mind or itching along my frontal cortex can’t be rendered into sound another skip a signifier missing its signified if a song skips enough consistently enough Pavlov darling you’ll startle into your own sound the first time you hear it right and that was always her a gap in the tooth your tongue tip always finds its way into yet’s rendered neutral expected through the power of familiarity call me call me call called white noise static scream something soothing and grating in turn lack needling in the middle of the night what was her name she must have one everyone has a name
don’t they](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5tcc5htlyhcnmp3guxcneid/bafkreidiol6gzgg54zrtffguipd3p57eog3yhsqtoglasimlkcahgm5kma)
