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.


Brittany Adames is a Dominican-American writer. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Hobart Pulp, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College.

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