The Queen of the Bagelverse

Toxic Consumption is a chapbook of eight poems about inhabiting the same body as the force that seeks to destroy that body. The title is a combination of the word “toxic” and the phrase “destructive consumption.” Together, these words articulate a message of mutual destruction: both the destruction of the consumer and the destruction of the consumed. The collection explores a mentally ill individual’s coping mechanisms, the violation of the body and mind by internal and external forces, and the ways in which we seek to turn our struggles into stories. These poems are immediate, desperate, and rooted in the middle of an ongoing conflict. The final line of “A Love Letter to the Moth” summarizes this sentiment: “We are not in the aftermath. We do not have that luxury.”

Nihil scis, Socrates