House of Cards
after Shivani Mehta

“Come See the Home of the Manic-Psychotic Poet!” the local newspaper byline reads. My mother invites groups of 10 at a time to investigate my one bedroom suburban New York apartment. CAUTION tape still decorates my bedroom to denote the scene of my death. That doesn’t stop the crowd from fingering my ivory sheets now splattered pinot noir and licking the dust build-up from underneath my bed. “Such an unctuous young lady,” a man whispers, as he sniffs my neon pink bikini-style underwear still wet with my period blood. “She was so pure!” a woman says, repeatedly ascending my fragile poppy pink “Executive Realness” lipstick until it falls out of the tube entirely. “Soft like lamb’s fur,” another man moans, caressing a small pool of my dead hair he finds matted into a brush. “We certainly will remember her well,” my mom says exhaling heavily. She perks up, “Would you like to see her poetry collection? Plenty of rare finds available for purchase,” my mother indicates, as she directs the audience to my living room, “I accept cash, credit cards, and Venmo. Tips welcome,” she winks at the group. They roar with laughter, filling the small spaces between my bookshelves, television set with console, and leaden couch. “This is where my daughter had most of her hallucinations,” she points to the couch, “She also wrote her best poems here… top bidder wins, and I’ll even throw in her toothbrush,” she winks again. My mother and the crowd screech with laugher that grows interminably as their stomachs ache and throats dry up. Poltergeist, my laughter borders theirs and explodes, juddering the floral print ceramic plates nestled in my dish rack. The uninvited guests gasp for air, hands hallowed as they attempt to diminish the giggles now mangling their throats. I overtake their bodies until their chortles become my own and their faces grow sunken as they succumb to apparition’s jurisprudence. The incandescent yellow CAUTION tape watches on as the scene glitters in the sunbeams aggressing the living room window. It’s a full house!

Tiezst “Tie” Taylor (they/them/she/hers) is a Disabled Black femme, lesbian, and non-binary trans person. They see this positionality as indivisible from their work. They are a 2026 Best New Poets nominee, a past Pushcart nominee, radical educator, artist-activist, poet, storyteller, and the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Duplex Form.” They have earned degrees in education (B.A. in the individualized major of Teaching for Social Justice, New York University & M.S.Ed in Elementary Education, University of Pennsylvania). Their poetry is inspired by, in conversation with, and engages with: poets and writers of the Harlem Renaissance; Black American literary legacies and canon; Black Feminist theory; Hoodoo and Traditional African Religion; Disability Justice; racial justice; abolition; and their own experiences and family history of Black identity and Blackness, mental illness, intergenerational trauma, and poverty. Tie uses their art and research to educate, heal, nurture, radicalize, and catalyze change for all marginalized peoples. Tie was a 2025 Emerge Fellow with San Francisco State University, a 2025 Poet of the Week with Brooklyn Poets, a Spring 2024 Brooklyn Poets Fellow, and a past awardee of the NYSCA/NYFA Artists with Disabilities Grant. Tie is a recent third-place winner of Midway Journal’s 2026 -1000 Below: Flash Prose and Poetry Contest for their prose poem “Hunger,” selected by Michael Martone. Tie’s work appears or is upcoming in ONLY POEMS, ANMLY, Shō Poetry Journal, Midway Journal, and Torch Literary Magazine. Tie is a mentee in the 2026 NYC Arts in Education Roundtable’s New York State Teaching Artist Mentorship Program. Follow Tiezst on Instagram @tiezst.