ANOTHER WORLD EXISTS

A poem.

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

via @skims

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)