This Little Piggy Went to the Market

“This Little Piggy Went to the Market” by Marisa Lainson is the second runner-up of the 2024 Rising Poet Prize for emerging poets, selected by Morgan Parker. We’re honored to share this emotional poem with you.

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This little piggy went to the therapist.

This little piggy tried hallucinogenics.

This little piggy tried hot yoga.

This little piggy had a house of straw. She inherited it from her grandmother, who was kind and made her own limoncello. The house burned when the wolves came.

This little piggy has nightmares about wolves.

This little piggy listens to murder podcasts while she paints her nails.

This little piggy listens to BTS and makes vegan enchiladas from scratch.

This little piggy also has nightmares about wolves.

This little piggy made a three-course meal for her mean cousin’s engagement party.

This little piggy sat across from her wolf at Christmas dinner. He got very drunk and slurred a joke and her whole family laughed. When he left, he asked her for a hug and rubbed her shoulders for too long. She threw up all the Christmas ham when he was gone.

This little piggy talks to her rare succulents instead of her therapist.

This little piggy triple checks the locks at night.

This little piggy bought a new red lipstick and felt gender euphoric.

This little piggy knuckles her keys in dark parking lots.

This little piggy dyed her hair blue & pink & purple and asked the cute barista for her number.

This little piggy was trussed up, skirt & heels & twine & wine & ducktape and devoured. The wolves said that she was asking for it because of the skirt & the fishnets & the apple in her mouth. The wolves saved the apple in her mouth for last.

This little piggy has five cats.

This little piggy forgot to eat for three days.

This little piggy saw a wolf she knew talking to her little sister and kneed him in the dick.

This little piggy lives in a studio apartment with 10,000 roaches & a bathroom spider. The apartment costs $2800 a month. On her last birthday she cried in the bathtub with a box of wine. The spider watched her from the corner. The spider does not pay rent.

This little piggy does not have an emotional support spider. She is mean to her friends when she gets anxious.

This little piggy is always anxious.

This little piggy tried Effexor.

This little piggy tried Wellbutrin.

This little piggy tried Effexor & Wellbutrin & Trazodone & Abilify. She flushed all her meds down the toilet, went to a local park, and lay down in the clover, trying to remember how it felt to sing. Her mother found her three hours later. The little piggy now has a new psychiatrist. His office smells like ham.

This little piggy has had nightmares about wolves since she was nine years old.

This little piggy had a house of wood. It was a very beautiful house, with crown molding & vintage tile & orchids in the windowsill. The house burned when the wolves came. House of straw, house of wood, house of flesh, they all burn eventually.

This little piggy loved all her friends so much it hurt, a knot of fear beneath the sternum.

This little piggy cried & cried in the cab all the way home.

This little piggy went to the home store and bought a truckload of bricks.