The Indicator x The Student: “Took Me A Whole Rewatch of Golden Girls & Glee”

In this edition of The Indicator x The Student, Siani Ammons ’27 reflects on religion in her upbringing in her poem, “Took Me A Whole Rewatch of Golden Girls & Glee.”

To remember
    that Maybe it’s time I clean the silver veins from my bones 
w/ Dawn Original Scent Ultra Dishwashing Sadness Melter & when it’s done,
heat my melted sadness, & try not to flinch at my reflection in the weeping
    microwave. In these 15 seconds of remembrance, I reminisce
on Grilled Cheesus & how Ivan, my driver to the hospital last Thursday — full of
huge abscesses of disarming love — told me, unprompted, that the only secret
    to life was
        to always put God 1st.

Lately, it feels like the
    holy secret isn’t synonymous to the gifts of the world like
an all-consuming Cozy Sherpa Wearable Throw Snuggie. Still, I whisper a cross
in the air, wiping it away w/ Charmin Ultra Cushiony Soft GOD
    LOVE YOUS Toilet Paper when it becomes funky with my sweat, &
dance away my loneliness w/ my tongue, dipping snow crab legs into the
butter of my melted sadness — that surprisingly, joyfully, returned
    from the 1st stanza —
        placed in a bowl!

Created from my affectionate ‘big’:
    my tender bones, dripping, caked & held down by delusional
bone marrow, my weathered big heart that mumbles WHERE MY HUG AT,
MAMAS?, the mess of my scarlett bruised veins & my hollow
    back, begging. Still, I sing away my pain
       imitating Santanna’s copyrighted

BAD BITCHERY w/ IF YOU LOVED ME by BROWNSTONE. Then,
    I stop, remembering I can’t say I’m unloved-unloved unless
    Sue Sylvester C’s it, herself. So, I call her — like
Bloody Mary in the mirror — to ask for permission, but she never
answers — like everyone else. Still, I put on a red sport tracksuit, admire myself
    in the mirror, summon my only friends, Black sisters, their blackness
        hidden by geriatric Miami whiteness, revealed in copious

amounts of whoredom: Blache, Rose, Sofia, & Dorothy
    who tell me: “you’re worthy” amidst 70’s-esque hallucinogens &
awe-inspiringly say I deserve all the galore Cheesecake Factory’s Salted
Caramel has to offer as well as YoPo FroYo so loving
    it becomes soup & easily digestible in the mouth. So,
        I hug them, big heart tightroped & strangled around reality

feeling warm like the after-church-celebratory Golden Corral’s Buffet &
    Grill of my childhood where I approached the fondue machine hand-in-hand
with my mom & she would always tell me, seriously, to: “treat it softly, Siani” as
I stuck a drooping marshmallow in it’s gaping hole, admiring the violence
    of it all. Mommy & I would leave changed, softer, & more vulnerable in our
        stuffy blue church clothes, driving that long, inescapable ride
            home.