Such Impermanence

such impermanence

what hungry animal is inside you starving, for love or some other strange affection. you beat it when it asks for too much. say: that’s enough. keep it ravenous and wanting, too weak to cause trouble. strong enough it doesn’t die to rattle your self-control once a month, year, however long you can put it off. don’t acknowledge the tears inside your linings, don’t ever need anything. that startling want breaks you, makes you long for such impermanence as love. there’s a reason i write about rib cages and women: you were made from the bones of a different breed. our ribs do not belong to us, and that ache always feels foreign even after centuries. a reminder you could not be contained just within yourself. you had to be made fleeting, imprisoned fading. had to be kept hungry so you could not be anything other than a mouth with which to swallow whole. from the wild you were made to want what could only be given. always that impermanent thought, taught to hold in and not take, take, take to appease your inner self. never having enough in the bones you were given, still trying to bite more. keep the beast and throw the body to the wolves- the insides will starve itself to death anyway. we were not meant to last forever. we were not even meant to live this long.

the right truth

in specific contexts, i am a different person now then i am then. alice: i can’t go back. yes, exactly what i mean. for every question there is a different answer depending on whether or not i trust you. or the setting of the situation. take these, examples,

SITUATION ONE. i am at a party. it’s a friend’s party. i was late. listen, i didn’t want to come. they can’t know that, so what do i tell them?

answer: make up some elaborate hilarious story about the cat and the driving and putting on clothes in the wrong order and not how you sat in the closet for two minutes rocking and how you took four pills for anxiety before coming. if they laugh, they won’t notice the way you slip your eyes closed too often to be real.

SITUATION TWO. i’m with my family and they ask me who i’ve decided to love (have i decided to love? do i know what that is?) can i tell them the truth of it or do i have to hold my hands palm in to my chest, don’t let the lines tell them what they want to know?

answer: you can say a little. tell them you’re in love but you’re not sure of it, don’t tell them who or what or how many because really would they want to think about you and love with their closed door minds? they can hardly think of you as it is.

SITUATION THREE. i’m seeing another therapist. oh god, what do i say. what do i tell them?

answer: the part of you that you can stand to bear on your mind. the truth that seems right under the circumstance.

for every question if you told me when and where and how i would have another answer because who i am depends on who i’m with. that may not be right, but it is true, and i’m never the same person twice. but is anyone? and that’s the kicker to this sad sorry punchline joke. nobody’s right. even if it’s all true.

DEAR MEN:

this is not a poem to say i hate men. but-

i am cat called by cars on three separate occasions on the same stretch of road while i am running just in one week and there are only so many times you can say fuck you before someone takes you up on it.

i am not flattered. i am always afraid.

because the men on motorcycles at a rest stop say hey dear in that voice, and suddenly i don’t want to stop.

because they make fun of women for going to the bathroom together when they know what happens when we go alone.

because a man buys a drink for me and it’s fruity and i don’t want it and i’d rather have a whiskey.

because i eat and i am called fat and i don’t eat and he goes babe, do you have an eating disorder or some shit? i don’t want to deal with that.

because i want to pay for my own dinner so you don’t have to deal with that.

because a man buys me a whiskey and i don’t want it and i’d rather have a sangria.

because i would like to buy my own damn drink.

because i go to work out at the gym and i can feel them looking at me, i can feel it itching over me.

because one of them slaps me on the ass and says look at that to his friends when it jiggles.

because it was like a gunshot and i am still flinching.

because it was a touch and i am still flinching.

because it was a long time ago and i am still flinching.

because every day there are these men and they don’t understand that i am a person and not a body and a human and not a body and i am a woman and not a body and this body is not your own.

dear men: you are one letter away from mean.

dear men: i don’t hate you*

*all.

dear men: sometimes i love you. too much. sometimes i need to let you go.

dear dad: i love you too. this is not a poem about you, for once. it’s about them.

dear men: THIS IS NOT YOURS. dear boys: learn from this. dear men: LISTEN TO THIS. dear women: do not take this.

the wreck of the earth

humans are in the same category
as natural disasters for things that cause destruction. we are worse than hurricanes, hollow planes above cities. a masterpiece of catastrophe.

we are well-intended, to a point. the point is this: there is something dying and we refuse to save it. to even look at the damage we have done.

i am no exception.

and this is how we wreck what we have learned to love: by trying to save it or loving it in the first place.

love her. love her. love her.

you are waiting in between-

ans Meer

to the sea.

i learned how to speak seven languages by the time i was young. they were not what i thought they should be.

in each one, the word for world had no other meaning.

der Welt, mein Herz is a terrible terrible place.

is this why we flee? на море to the ocean, to the sea?

when i said language, i did not mean русская or deutsch or română; i meant a different sort of words.

how to show fear and regret and to speak angrily, with no remorse.

crying long hours, how you say, like the rainstorm.

there is no native language for grief because we are all fluent speakers.

there is a grammar for happiness that must be learned.

when i was smaller then, not of body but mind, i asked how you knew it was really the sea.

how it was not simply the red overwhelming everything else you saw.

i do not think i was really asking about the sea.

even know i do not know if the sea is what i mean when i say it is what we are all seeking.

weltzsmurch we are all world weary.

perhaps the sea is red because everything else is blue.

and the question still remains- if i say happiness in one language will you understand the meaning in another?

please understand i mean no harm.

für mein love, my love, my love, the sea my love, my dragoste my love, to see my love my love my love, is red.

in a place between words we cannot communicate and somehow we are all waiting in between.

спасибо, there is a way to reach the ocean from here.

is there an ocean everywhere around us.

in my mind the sea is red and my mind the sea.

a language of neutral patterns, waves, timing and frequency.

i cannot seem to rid myself of the sea and the sea cannot rid myself of me.

from speaking in a manner of many words i have only learned this:

the word for world is weary of being used in such a small manner.

and we have yet to set out on our own infinite sea, the red one we wade through.

of cut down trees and men. in every language the word for hatred is spelled like knife in back, in throat, in heart you do not have.

hatred is the killing of something not your own.

a small body rests am Meer too tired to know the consequence.

we are the word for emptiness and conscience.

we the only word that matters.

the sea is red at our feet.

bitter kisses

i eat lemons alone, no company because afterwards everything tastes sweeter. every breath is now sugar, an aftertaste of acid burning tissue.

does everything on your skin feel soft after it’s been burned?

another lemon, mint, and the air tastes cold. metal between my hands is warming; i am freezing to death.

suck on the pulp and kiss everyone good bye. i leave a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. i leave a bitter sweetness on their tongue.