June 7, 2006
A
ladder out of the pit of my body
 |
Nerdy, huh? I bought the 1980 edition on
Amazon by accident. |
The day. The time. I just wrote to Ann. Frightened,
but feeling brave. When is the time I was bravest?
When I was in the woods alone. I
never was real big on forcing my fears, and that's the pincushion
I always live on. The fear resides in my skin. How many years do
I have left? My skin hooked to hangers
of bone. A ludicrous situation. Time. Loss. Bones. Clack. Stones
lose their way. A sound more pungent than doom. It's a loss I can
endure. Just a slight disturbance of the brain.
I'm someone who depends on my brain. Although who
doesn't? A ladder out of the pit of my body. A stone hanging, a twitching
plumbline. Leavened bread and scented breath.
I know an old poet who hates poems about the self.
Art in my little toenail, you look slatternly to me. A woman from
the washhouse. We value our secrecy here. It's the last game,
the end row., The silence singes bone. Am I bone or gristle? A sensitive
display. He asked why I'm putting myself through this. He understands
me, but maybe that's not hard. A open book.
A threadbare bone.
I gnaw my nails.
I am a cannibal of rats.
The end game, what does that mean? I have no choice
but to write. A stony night day after devil's due. Living a game
as if it weren't real. Feral visions. I need to address my anger,
but that makes me want to diss. Anger. A red and bulging blister
that makes me want to weep.
I'm sensitive as a twig. I'm the fast rhythm.
A face within the wood. I'm a changed woman, a sensitive illusion.
Sticks are breaking and it makes me want to cry. My tears
are just beneath the surface and I've always been so lonely. That's
why we love each other. Because we've always been so lonely. A little
girl, looking in the door, fingers wide upon the screen. I'm looking
in the house of my childhood, and down the steps. That house holds
all my memories, and they tore me from its grasp. I went numb after
that. I learned then that they didn't care about me. It came to me
night after night in the summer of my awareness. Before that I never
knew. Oh, sweet girl. I'd show you how to love. Nobody cares about
you. Nobody loved you, and of this I have no doubt. You were
alone. You're so good at filling lonely. When I think about Ann,
sometimes it's as a mother. Tearing. It makes me sad to think how
excited, desperate, lonely I was to meet her. I was alone, and
this is fucking killing me. I'm so afraid of the pictures. The terrible
time was after I found out I was alone. Really trying to diss.
The hurried glance,
the sidewards look,
the taste of letting go. A mystery, a startling set of reasons. The taste comes
from under your tongue.
She hated me. I reflected poorly on her. It's true and it isn't
true. It's true and it doesn't matter?
I followed all the rules.
What you do when you're afraid.
A taste of letting go
I had no say.
I had no tongue.
A taste of letting go
The side of my cheek
The side of my bone
Bones grind like slabs of flesh.
I am a rib, a bone, a taste of letting go.
They'll call when they really want you
Liquid in the vine.
I walked tonight.
Razor in bone
The bone yard of the dead.
My mother liked the newborns at the hospital where
she worked. She said she liked infants better than children.
I take great pride in my frugality but maybe
I want to buy stuff once in a while, and take better
care of myself. I ought to care that I scare myself. I'm just living
for the sensations. I shred my nails down to the bone. My fingers
always hurt. Don't look at that. A curtain for disasters.
I feel like a detective in my own life. I am victim
and vanquisher.
I am a slipping life. A sensational disaster.
I am sipping death. The fragrance of never mind. Latitudes of never more
The currants heavy on the vine, bees thicker
in the air. This is a mordant disaster. I'm encased within an egg and
the shell is not so fragile. I can push out and I can compress.
I'm the shape within the egg
You are so licentious. Lascivious. To love myself,
I must be sexual. Sometimes I use sex with myself to punish myself
with how awful I can be. I look at images of total depravity, depending
on your culture. I'm sifting through words, and I'd sell them if
I could.
I want him so much. I can feel his shirt against
my face. His chin against my lips. The fine, pale hairs that lie
against his arms. His lips against my neck. Roughness of his shirt
and smoothness of his skin. He is a good man. A fine man. A soft
boy, he needs me. He needs me? He says he doesn't need me. I don't
know whether to believe. Does he need to heal me for me to really
love?
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