watermelon seeds

Author

cooter doodle
February 01, 2026

[watermelon seeds]

the watermelon seeds sit like poison on my tongue
I dance between life and death as they swim inside my gums
if I forget to hold my breath or give in before I spit
they’ll tell me my fate in five
hey, it’s your funeral kid

the watermelon seeds are the nightmares that I keep
when will they hurt the ones I love goddamnit i’m losing sleep
over the watermelon seeds
but
i’ve never seen one on the loose
never seen a melon crushing guts and bones as it balloons

I even swallowed nature’s bullet once yet here I am? alive?
they’ll tell me my fate in five,
won’t they?
yet here I am. alive.

they fooled me!
with the watermelons!
So now I chew them, rind and seed
And I watch the fortune tellers’ bellies swell inside of my glass screens

Half-Read Recommendation

I may never finish another book ever again so long as I live, but I sure know how to start ‘em.

Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Dog-eared at page: 37/136

Rather than my half-read take on it, I’ll leave you with one of the lines I’ve scribbled pencil beneath. I’ve left the page smudged and bent in the corner for my return.

I say it because I have noticed: wars will break out, the planet will heat up, species will die out, but how many, how hot, and what survives depends on whether we act. The future is dark, with a darkness as much of the womb as the grave.

Rebecca Solnit

find a little hope in the dark.
until next time. -cd