Katamari Daddy

Jenne Hsien Patrick

July 15, 2021

Every tiny paperclip cuts
a little as I roll. I thumbtack my duty
to daddy, learning to say yes, collect
every common desire. Zigzagging
through rooms, I am his invisible
dreaming, a shining sideways spell
fixing everything. To finish the mess

                 maybe it begins with this:
                                  am I am I am I
                                                   an inherited holehole business?
                 I’d rather disavow any tendrils of definition
                 the vowels A and O and the moan
                 indistinguishable from life itself

he left me. This fragmented universe,
now mine to rebuild from pencils,
suitcase, television, jellyfish. I charm it all
into my orbit, suck down diamonds, devour
Hi Honey, I’m home sitcom daddies whole.
This obedient work, it’s a grind. I try to forget
the constellations he shattered, dodge loose electrons
fueled from his supernova burning through everything and

                 I collapse, my unruly body grows smaller
                 to escape attention, but never escapes notice
                                  am I am I am I
                                                   merely a lumpchunk soul – no
                 I crown my impossible thoughts with salt and selenite
                 I lipstick my lips with spit and wipe them off with my cuff

by the time I can gather clouds and rivers
and cache every broken wreck off this earth,
I can reverse crystal-ball his punches,
how he obliterates Pluto, fracture the galaxies
into every living and dead bit. I was tasked as kin
to re-mass the universe, in order to save us all.
The truth is, I don’t need his mirror blessing.
I want to blow up the palace. I too want
to be the one who destroys.