knife wife life

Artwork by Madeleine Vitanza, staff artist.

what is the point?

metal and machine, 

     one of a thousand thousand identical others,

single-purposed, single-minded.

built for filth; built

      for the dirt.

is it to test your speed and agility?

moto perpetuo, perpetual motion, 

     yet always in adagio; 

the wanderer cursed to chase 

     underfoot and underpace.

does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?

<omnipresent (adj.): being present 

     everywhere at once>

clearance level for [sanitation robot 192012225]: 

     {universal access}

does it weed out the weak?

leave drops of ichor

in your wake, this 

     bladed edge of yours sinking

     shallow

into familiar flesh.

[medical report 1815151321:

     injury classification: knife-inflicted mild stab wound]

but then what is its purpose?

[crew member designation: 

I don’t know;

the Roomba, Stabby]

it just seemed cool.

~

I knew from the moment we began this theme that I was going to have to think a little outside the box. I don’t know the first or second thing about most folklore; even my own heritage is relatively obscure to me, my parents having never made a particular effort to pass down that part of our culture and myself having never made a particular effort to learn it. I do, however, spend obscene amounts of time on the side of Pinterest that reposts Tumblr posts, and in this way, bit by bit, I was drip-fed the sweeping forests of Tumblr culture. The very idea of “Tumblr culture” itself is incredibly touching to me in ways that are hard to articulate. Modern internet spaces so deeply interconnected and yet simultaneously so deeply insular so as to foster its own fledgling cultural identity independent of any physical ties or history? The human nature of connections has never looked so beautiful. 

There are a number of famous Tumblr stories—the God of Arepo, Doctors Without Borders in space, the tiny dragon with a one-coin hoard, the apocalypse daycare worker. All of these highlight the kinder, sweeter side of humanity, but I wanted to pay homage to one of the more whimsical stories in Stabby the Roomba (by which I mean I couldn’t finagle retelling Arepo so I resorted to shitposting on main). The poem itself is guided by the dialogue interaction of the original post; I wanted to incorporate some of its main elements while adding some of my own originality. The subversion of the first half to the second is also in a way reflective of the duality of Tumblr stories/folklore itself—simultaneously beautifully written and mischievously entertaining. 

Ren Tang (they/any) is a high school student from Long Island, New York. When not occupied with being a responsible human, they can be found bingeing media, playing Valorant, or scrolling Pinterest; in addition to writing, they enjoy copious amounts of music, amateur photography, losing at badminton, and collecting a dragon’s hoard of interesting words and quotes. They are, above all, a lover of beauty in all its forms.