WOMAN STANDS BEFORE A STEEL TOWER
excerpts
Dark outside. Someone pull up a chair for her. She was there for eight hours. Someone pull up a chair for her, she is tired, drenched in something invisible.
And of course I’m glad
for the immunities of science
do I even need to say it?
for the masses salvaged, delivered
from premature moonrise of Eternal Light
Heart attacks, overdoses, made 'alright' again
flickering brains surfaced in Scientific nets
breaching from depths unknown
dropped on the shore of familiar burdens
with a wet thud of miracle
& a peculiar taste in the mouth.
Of course I’m grateful
Visions of Guadalupe
wafting through linoleum stairwells
leaving a pink glow trail
the smell of sweet beeswax
Of course I’m glad for all that
do I even need to say it?
But doctor her lips were white, eyes like caves. Her body seems to absorb light, cloaked in a sopping shroud, life eating itself. What’s that called again? Autoimmune? A star inhales itself into an unknown, inner field.
What happened / what was recorded / what stained your opinion / were you tired / were you distracted / what did you forget:
she can’t forget anything. Baby can’t either.
Where will baby land if it refuses the jaws of earth?
Where will mum land after her body has been a graveyard?
♢
I was wiping the countertop and putting sweetcorn into a Tupperware as her whole body drew stories of
diagnosis / insomnia / ptsd / dismissal / family / art therapy / professionals
“Why the f*ck am I taking three different antidepressants?”
She had to seek out
a third professional
to decipher who was right:
the doctor or the psychiatrist
♢
Testifying to congress against the father of her kids, the lawyer spun webs of interrogation even though the truth was in plain sight. The blue-purple-yellow ink of reality still coated Her Body of Evidence. She recalls the first time her anger was released: she was at the pool, swimming. It ejected from her like white light into the the public pool.
Later, having scaled many further mountains, she delivered it all to the doctors’ golden pen.
“Low Mood Disorder” he said and he wrote.
♢
this isn't the kind of thing you can get with money or temper tantrums
I am clearing my interior with explosions and wildfires. I learn there is no demise
but opening. now the bleeding widened land can hold all these contradictions
Give me another lesson in choosing my own selfhood
in trying to kill me you are teaching me how to survive
and since there are many predators I am discovering many ways