We Have Gotten So Good At Dying
A sad memento is sad so long
as it’s
the officiant of girlhood—the body its own
disengaged worship. How to chronicle the roads that have teethed
the strange out of us. This is where linearity ends, marking things
with that sort of fidelity now: the smear of acne, puckered Diet Coke cans,
the form predicted on returning, footfalls loosened with such a well-practiced
falseness it’s a wonder we aren’t made for the sea. We’ve killed each other into
myths,
haven’t we. The stroke of the sticky earth beneath all else, getting away
from the speculation and into the fact. You don’t have to imagine the grief. Besides,
it’s a new thing to move out of your own spirit. It’s a new thing to molder
the resolve, the promise of a whisper, and fuck the guy who pretends poetry
is a good thing. I’m no longer a good thing. I’m scrambling for purchase,
the work in process where the water kisses fire and the accusing space that’s
left after. Show me how you stuff the pellets between the soot & grime, how it
knifes memory with memory, choosing to enjoy in a way that is continually alive.
