nat raum

nat raum is the poet laureate of the void; their corporeal form lives in Baltimore. They’re the author of the abyss is staring back, random access memory, camera indomita, and many others. Find them online at natraum.com or astral projecting inside a Royal Farms.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

journal (take #14)

After “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes” by Fall Out Boy

dear diary, i am fixated on what i’d do with a body that worked. my

brain spins awkward ovals like a warped hard drive, insistent—at

least, persistent—on plummeting everything in the air around me that

even resembles a vibe. dear diary, i am a loose bolt in a way that is

undeniable and you better believe i’m also certifiable, especially right

now, burning circles through my kitchen floor with my incessant

pacing, sinking divots in my futon when my achilles tendons cry I’VE

HAD ENOUGH ALL RIGHT and god, if it ain’t a mood, but my

prefrontal cortex isn’t the kind of thing i can rest for a little while.

especially not right now, diary, when my legs may tingle, wrists may

ache, but i can actually feel my pulse for a change and i’m not about

to waste that feeling—not for a second. i am still alive. i am still alive.

journal (take #15)

dear diary, someone needs to set the record straight on whether

chiropractors are conmen—i’m running out of ways to fix my spine

on my own, and besides, i think i need someone to just tell me what’s

wrong with me for once. when i was nineteen i matched with a

bonesetter on tinder and he assumed i was a painter because my bio

said art school or something and when i yelled at him for assuming, he

rescinded his offer of realignment, claiming i’d assumed too. what are

the odds, dear diary, that he was really reading my mind and the

assumption, in fact, is what’s wrong with me? hasn’t anyone else ever

jumped to conclusions before?

journal (take #33)

dear diary, how in the world have i never written about my stomach

before—at least, not like this, with acid rising up clenched esophagus,

vinegar bloating through bronchioles. the truth is i drink about two

dr. peppers a day, on average, because coffee and tea are the main

culprits and a chronically exhausted babe needs caffeine, you see, and

thank god i stopped booze years ago; i still remember waking up the

morning after mezcal-tasting, stakes of the smokesharp liquid

piercing every organ, i swore it. dear diary, did i mention this is only

one side of the proverbial coin—i largely shirk the spicy and caustic

for the other end of the pH spectrum, milk and yogurt and cream

and especially cheese, settling into sludge as my guts tingle in dismay.

i once told a server i was very lactose intolerant but i didn’t care; now,

i care afterwards but the sentiment remains largely the same. dear

diary, there has always been something calamitous in me and my

taquería order seems to agree—i see it as dialectical behavioral

therapy, a type of harm in service of living. don’t laugh. i am getting

by on the little things right now.

journal (take #36)

dear diary, i don’t have lockjaw yet but i have to imagine i’m getting

there, molars whittled to stumps at the base of a hinge that hardly

ever swings open in the night, when i am asleep and should be

relaxed but cannot reconcile stiff vertebrae, shoulder muscles

clenched in the shape of a hundred tiny fists—it was only tonight,

after what my lover calls a copious amount of marijuana, that i broke my

body open, engaged in the kind of back crack autumn called (or was

it kate? i’m tired) like a glowstick and diary, someone else i know

dislikes me said once that bones and teeth are overused in poems and

what i have to say to that is: have you ever actually been creak-and-

crackle barbie, your joints as loose as a pre-roll made in