I’m like a soft butch Polly Pocket who woke up in her oyster-shell house with a fade and nothing but silica packets in her cabinets. It’s time to grow out my hair, figure out how to smooth out these lines on my forehead, maybe throw some bangs over them. This apartment is too small, the same size as one of those ridiculous tiny houses. If I were actually Polly Pocket, my house would be in a landfill. Or purgatory. I treat the days like a Stretch Armstrong doll. The day looks all brawn, but it’s some mid-’90s gimmick—Play-Doh for muscles. Everywhere I live is an interim, and Stretch’s hairline is beginning to recede. His muscles are starting to atrophy, but he’s still a human hole puncher. Ask the walls.
POETRY March 4, 2022
Tiny House Nation
Brett Hanley is a poetry editor for Southeast Review. She holds an MFA from McNeese State and is a PhD candidate at Florida State. Their work is forthcoming or has recently been published in Redivider, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Puerto del Sol, THE BOILER, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and American Poetry Journal recently published their debut chapbook, Defeat the Rest.