Manic Pixie Dream Sestina
by January Santoso
Let her be more than just a series of riffs:
too much to be redundant. Let her be unhinged.
Relatable is so passe. Let there be substance
in her paradox, as calculated & uncontrolled
as a childhood relayed in mixolydian runs. Sestina
Aguilera, her tessitura tethered lyric, beating
meaning like an 808 syncing heartbeats
microcosmic & collective, smothered by a riff
of epileptic strobe lights. A legit sestina
triggers seizures quicker than the men I meet on Hinge
swell like orgies in the mind: the way you control
conversation (by starting it) is toxic. Subterranean
passive aggression: common in men lacking substance.
Complexity. See how yielding to a series of deadbeats
ironically sends one careening? It’s out of my control—
that’s just what obsession does. A cunty sestina riffs
upon itself systemically because its survival hinges
on the right people, who privilege the Sestina
by maximizing its prosodic exploitation. But sestinas,
like myself, have always had a lowkey substance
problem. With loose lips like a regularly-hinged
lesbian & an Adderall script, I’m hellbent on beating
Ashbery’s schemes with memes as my ammunition. I’m semi-riffing
like a teenage boy might beat up a couple of strippers in GTA (ctrl+
c & p that into JSTOR). Is it merely self-control?
One’s capacity to stay calm in the presence of such sestina-
like speeches? Euphemisms are symbolic sestinas, riffs
for white libs to win us over in (the war on substance?)
Times Like These meanwhile everyday I wake up so horny I can’t beat
my meat even. Frustration’s what paralysis hinges
on & on the John I open Hinge… truly unhinged
behavior. Like an experiment in which the control
mice get eaten alive by zombie-mice, all beady
eyed & probably evil. Strictly defined, Death-By-Sestina
is nothing more than a humiliating demise. Subtext:
It parallels one’s ability to kill joy IRL, like a riff
retreating to the page: safe space for an unhinged bitch. Writing sestinas
when she should be in therapy snorting more non-controlled substances
like a beat remains basically unchanged—just hooked on a different riff.