Lyd Havens

Litany for / Anti-application to be on Survivor

My hands are too small for machetes.
My nose is the first part of my body to freeze.
My chest escapes from bikinis; it is so much
work to wrangle it back in.
My gender isn’t listed on the application.
My joints pop like bamboo in the fire.
My face gives too much away.
My strategy is to ask everyone if they are mad at me.
My mother will appear from behind those palm
fronds and I will weep until my face blurs,
watercolor becoming water again.

I’m on Zoloft.
I’m not a runner.
I’m a picky eater.
I’m too quiet.
I’m too loud.
I’m afraid of my tattoos burning in the sun.
I’m not entirely sure what magnesium is.
I’m already full of splinters.
I’m hungry just thinking about hunger.

I have never eaten a coconut.
I have never peed outside.
I have never successfully finished
a slide puzzle.
I have almost drowned too many times.
I have an especially sensitive gag reflex.
I have no upper-body strength.

I have seen the octopi that tie themselves
to the ankles of their bizarre predators.
I have resonated more with their resilient limbs.

I have seen the lake full of jellyfish without
venom. The one players go to when they’ve won
a day without starving. The one I saw through
my smudged screen. The one that made me say,
yes. That. All those pink bulbs, harmless and unknowing
in freshwater. Real life still life in gouache.
I have decided I am only in this for them.