ANOTHER WORLD EXISTS
Kim Kardashian released an alien-themed campaign for her shapewear company, SKIMS. I wanted to write about it within the context of the recent UFO discourse, the increasing number of “NASA-backed” skincare devices on the market, and a cultural beauty ideal that grows more inhuman by the day — but alas, I find myself too overwhelmed by it all to form a coherent sentence! In lieu of a newsletter, I present: a poem comprised of copy-and-pasted subject lines and sentence fragments, each pulled from a different email I received this month — sent by beauty brands, by PR reps, by news outlets, by newsletters, by colleagues. A snapshot of the times. (You can read my previous “inbox poems” here, here, here, here, and here.)
ANOTHER WORLD EXISTS
More than 50 years have passed since the first humans landed on the moon
In that time, humanity has
stopping looking
to
the sky overhead.
it now
stares at
its own
skin.
Introducing a whole new realm!
Here
we have
a NASA-backed beauty device that instantly plumps your lips sans needles,
FDA approved at-home microcurrent facials
with
two separate probes for easier smoothing, pinching, holding, and lifting,
O2 PEPTIDE with proprietary OATH™ to promote cellular regeneration
(tested extensively in vitro),
Botox, Daxxify, Fillers, rhinoplasty, breast augmentations,
Hydrogel mask technology,
and
Deliverance serum—
a highly toxic and flammable gas
reformulated to
Get skin right and tight.
All this wonder!
We are
glowing
and
engulfed in historic rates of anxiety and sadness.
Indeed, if aliens were to take stock of the basic truth of the human condition
they would see
a
poreless
hairless
ageless
mindless
people
longing
to connect, to know and be known
in the most superficial of ways—
foreheads
frozen in a cosmic communion
as though it were somehow possible to forget
they
are making their way back to earth
as dirt.
(What if I said
Another world exists?
tell me you don’t yearn with all your soul to see it immediately)
Dare I say, the best poem yet?
beautiful jessica. also the other people in the comment section always make me feel less alone.