I think there is a version of grief that wants to be seen in its ugliest form,
wants the skin split open badly enough for everyone in the room to lose their appetite,
wants the bright slick of it on the floor, the tendon-flash, the raw little animal underneath
dragged out from behind the teeth and laid trembling in the light.
Not because suffering is beautiful.
It stinks.
It clots in the hair and under the nails.
It dries black at the edge and pulls the skin tight.
It leaves a smear on the tile, a dark thumbprint on the doorknob.
It makes a person look less tragic than inconvenient.
I keep thinking if I ruined myself thoroughly enough in public
there would be no room left for doubt,
only the open fact of me,
the torn place, the leaking place,
the body giving up its dignity and telling the truth.
And then what?
Who would flinch but stay?
Who would kneel in it, shoes soaking through,
and put both hands over the wound as if they had touched worse things and remained gentle?
Who would let my blood stripe their palms and wrists
without making a face like they had been tricked?
Who would lean close enough to smell the iron and salt of me
and not decide I was too much creature and not enough person?
Because that is part of it, isn’t it?
The shame of still wanting anyone to come nearer at all,
of still hoping the opened body might argue on my behalf,
might make the hurt undeniable,
might make me worth holding.
And afterward the shame will come crawling back clean-dressed and articulate,
telling me I have made too much of myself again,
left too much evidence,
shown the underside like anyone asked to see it.
By tomorrow these lines will look swollen and pathetic to me,
all that need dragged into language, all that blood given syntax.
I will want to disown every word
except I know I wrote them because they were true,
and truth does not get less embarrassing for having been said well.
I imagine walking afterward, one hand pressed to myself, one shoe filling slowly,
my blood making a patient trail behind me through the bright indifferent hallway,
and I wonder who would follow it past the point of spectacle,
past the point where concern curdles into inconvenience,
who would come after me while I was still ugly,
still wet with it,
my face wrecked and stupid with need.
Maybe that is all I want to know:
whether love survives contact with the mess,
whether anyone can feel the hot slick pulse against their fingers
and answer it with something other than fear.
