Trans Flag of Gatorade

in my room i have
a trans flag of gatorade.

picked out hastily
at the dollar store

filled up my
small backpack

just barely.

this morning i
woke up dizzy and with a migraine

i’ve been sick since
exactly one week ago

i spent a whole night
vomiting
& not getting any sleep.

somehow managed to
do a starbucks interview

so i can work for
a coffee chain
which uses slave labor
to get my trans healthcare

before my cousins came over
to take me to
the emergency room

this morning i
woke up puking
couldn’t go to another starbucks interview
& had to reschedule.

somehow i took a nap &
that took care of a lot of it
but i’ve been writhing in pain all day.

i’ve been sipping gatorade
& i think about
how needing eight glasses of water a day
was a rumor started by the gatorade company
to sell their product.

& i do my best
to not buy
from big corporations

but here i am
stuck in
no ethical consumption
under late capitalism

where i must work
for hours and hours
just to stay alive.

Mercury-Marvin Sunderland (he/him) is a transgender autistic gay man with Borderline Personality Disorder. He's from Seattle and currently attends the Evergreen State College. He's been published by University of Amsterdam's Writer's Block, UC Davis' Open Ceilings, UC Riverside's Santa Ana River Review, UC Santa Barbara's Spectrum, and The New School's The Inquisitive Eater. His lifelong dream is to become the most banned author in human history. He's @RomanGodMercury on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.