Last weekend, our writer Tyler Raso put dozens of Thrill headlines into a bot, and then forced the bot, against its and our will, to generate content for us. Every day this week, one article on the site will be one of the prompts the bot generated. These are our stories.

Peers, friends, lovers. How does one even begin to broach the subject of the market sandwich? How does one even look one in the eye and dare to love? I am at a loss, at a standstill. Where do I start? At the lettuce? The bread? The Thousand Island dressing? I must confess I’ve never felt this way about anything before. A love like this is a burden. It haunts me, consumes me, fills me with something dark and urgent, and, Reader, I am afraid.

I am afraid of what I will become, afraid of what might be. I lie awake at night dreaming of ham, yearning for the sweet caress of dill pickle. (Reader, can I tell you a secret? Sometimes my loneliness clings to me like a ghost and I leave my door unlocked and leave the light on. Sometimes when I lie with a lover I count the seconds of each breath and wonder if the exhale will be enough to sustain me. Reader, are you still there? I once stood in the middle of a lake in nothing but my skin and watched the water wrinkle my skin like withering heirloom tomatoes. I once pressed my nose into the romaine lettuce to see if I could breathe the scent of death. The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Cheddar on a wet, black cow. Reader, are you still there?)

I once hid in the closet at the sound of the doorbell late at night. Cried, and wiped my tears on my grandfather’s old leather jacket. I thought the last thing I’d ever taste was the rot of moth-balls in the back of my throat. My hair stood to attention on my arms as I waited for the stranger to leave. I don’t think flesh ever forgets the prolonged shock of fear. But love is the antidote. Sandwich is the answer. If food be the poetry of love, play on for $3.75 for I know not what else to do.

Deli Pickle Blues

abandoned

little phallus.

Green:

Like the moon

(yeet)

 

Instructional Octave for the Meat

how do i eat it? 

i press the stale bread to my face 

salami on a misty morning:

how do i eat it? 

where the crust sinks into your body

the lettuce and tomato mourn, restless

crumb by crumb, fall away in my hands–like a lover

how do i eat it? 

 

Grilled Cheese

who named you?

soft-centered

a mother’s milk

under the dying light of the moon 

at last