Fissured Tongue Series
Fortune Cookies
by Janice Heiss
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VI | May 2025
by Janice Heiss
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VI | May 2025
"Untitled as my soul" by Velibor Baćo. Mixed media, (digital), 2024
Fortune Cookies
“The fortune you seek is in another cookie”
Title from the film, THE FORTUNE YOU SEEK IS IN ANOTHER COOKIE Directed by Johannes Gierlinger, Austria, 2014
You look like you have years of office in you.
You are in between Jell-O and water.
You will pay with your life.
You like short stories and short relationships.
You will sleep like the half-moon.
The man you want turns into the dress you want, and they’re the same size.
You will only be able to truly love your husband when he is asleep.
You will tell him: “I love you because you bother me less than anyone else in my life.”
You like your men like your chocolate: bitter.
You will find it in the last place you look, but where is that?
You once wrote: “the sky slips on its black skirt and it is night.”
You thought this made you a real poet, but someone else had written it.
You will only be able to take a shower when it is raining.
You can hear your red wine breathing.
You know someone who tried to sue Chinese fortune cookies because they lied.
You will became a motivated seller.
(Be quiet: devices nearby are sleeping.)
You will need to take a psychotic break.
You will decide not to have a last name--it's too dangerous.
Your best friend had a thrilling time. Not you.
Time is the wisest counsellor, though it’s never on your side.
You won’t know whether to tell your best friend that she died in your dream last night.
You will have a friend so scatter-brained that after you talk to her, you vacuum.
Drinking alcohol makes you someone else but you don’t know who.
You will conclude that there should be a maximum wage.
You eat things that have a heart. How could you?
You believe that your masseuse is in love with you by the way that she touches you.
You have premature feelings that never happen.
You believe that you’re invaluable now that the weather has changed.
You still get lonely, even with 7 billion people on Earth.
You don’t understand English well enough to understand yourself.
You will die believing that your heart is the shape of a valentine.
You will put money into the pockets of clothes you donate to Goodwill.
You know someone who is so homophobic that she won’t adopt a same-sex pet.
Your father installed pay-toilets in your house.
You will be witness to something so horrifying that all the letters of the alphabet will spill out of your mouth. After this, you will be permanently mute.
Your best friend ran 10 miles per day, the week before she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
You wonder why people drop things that break.
You will never keep a boyfriend longer than a car.
You dream in black and white because it’s cheaper.
You will do things backwards rather than forwards.
You will never understand
You will never know.
Title from the film, THE FORTUNE YOU SEEK IS IN ANOTHER COOKIE Directed by Johannes Gierlinger, Austria, 2014
You look like you have years of office in you.
You are in between Jell-O and water.
You will pay with your life.
You like short stories and short relationships.
You will sleep like the half-moon.
The man you want turns into the dress you want, and they’re the same size.
You will only be able to truly love your husband when he is asleep.
You will tell him: “I love you because you bother me less than anyone else in my life.”
You like your men like your chocolate: bitter.
You will find it in the last place you look, but where is that?
You once wrote: “the sky slips on its black skirt and it is night.”
You thought this made you a real poet, but someone else had written it.
You will only be able to take a shower when it is raining.
You can hear your red wine breathing.
You know someone who tried to sue Chinese fortune cookies because they lied.
You will became a motivated seller.
(Be quiet: devices nearby are sleeping.)
You will need to take a psychotic break.
You will decide not to have a last name--it's too dangerous.
Your best friend had a thrilling time. Not you.
Time is the wisest counsellor, though it’s never on your side.
You won’t know whether to tell your best friend that she died in your dream last night.
You will have a friend so scatter-brained that after you talk to her, you vacuum.
Drinking alcohol makes you someone else but you don’t know who.
You will conclude that there should be a maximum wage.
You eat things that have a heart. How could you?
You believe that your masseuse is in love with you by the way that she touches you.
You have premature feelings that never happen.
You believe that you’re invaluable now that the weather has changed.
You still get lonely, even with 7 billion people on Earth.
You don’t understand English well enough to understand yourself.
You will die believing that your heart is the shape of a valentine.
You will put money into the pockets of clothes you donate to Goodwill.
You know someone who is so homophobic that she won’t adopt a same-sex pet.
Your father installed pay-toilets in your house.
You will be witness to something so horrifying that all the letters of the alphabet will spill out of your mouth. After this, you will be permanently mute.
Your best friend ran 10 miles per day, the week before she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
You wonder why people drop things that break.
You will never keep a boyfriend longer than a car.
You dream in black and white because it’s cheaper.
You will do things backwards rather than forwards.
You will never understand
You will never know.
***
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About the Author
Janice J. Heiss’ writing has appeared in various publications including The Ecstatic Moment: The Best of Libido anthology (Dell), Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (Washington State University), Passages North, The Modern Review, Aunties: 35 Writers Celebrate Their Other Mother, Ballantine Books (anthology), etc. Recent work appears in these online publications: The Kleksograph and BlazeVOX. *About the Work
In the past few years, I’ve been more playful/having more fun in my writing and being less linear and logical by employing humor and irony in my writing. And one day I thought it would be fun to play with all the fortune cookie fortunes that I had kept over the years for no known reason and that inspired me into playing with randomness. And this poem is the result. |
About the Artist
Born in Bosnia (1985), Velibor Baćo fled as a war refugee to Austria. Earned an MA in Legal Studies. Fled law, risk, banking and counseling to become a caretaker for impaired and homeless people. "In 2016 I started with writing poetry and abstract acrylic painting. I've been creating digital art and music as mnemonixART since 2020 and 2025 as 23llusion. About my current project 23llusion, starting with photography follows the realization that one does not have to even create or add color or form to try to depict nature. We just have to zoom in, in the right moment, but even more powerful seems to be the technique to take away or reduce works, and by that increase complexity. Like we need to dim blinding light to see colors and shapes, so do reduced aspects in optics increase others and vice versa." Full publications (art and literary) can be found here brush.bio/mnemonixart. *About the Work
Photography, turned canvas to digital - like in love - done by the same principle: a zero into one. And finally in music, the same principle: Love is start ("heart") and end ("❤️art") ("❤️") he by music ("hear") into ("❤️art") *About the Process
From 2016 I created around 12 acrylic paintings and then photography (2020) and solely working on an IphoneSE2020 started digital editing into 100+ digital pieces. Further reworking (200+) and adding AI base images after multiple steps of digital editing (based on the existing pre-work) or using 1 single prompt constantly (growing to 40+ words in 2024) with extremely wide spectrum in themes and results and again multiple steps of digital editing. The different media slowly grew and mixed and and creating experimental electronic music (bumping on the smartphone microphone for first loops, and constantly developing and mixing them) for art videos or visual poetry (10+ tracks). |
