FLINCH
once i gripped dry ice so hard just to feel the pain and watched it sublime off my grandfather's pool. childhood is a dream, Poet says. let's remember anything but the hurt. the screams, your chest ripping at the thought of mom, her anger hot & molten but forgiveness was always in your tongue even if it made you quiet. Poet is grateful for that, for the voice she buried & the brightness that slipped out of my reach. the brightness i try to catch but has always fled. let's remember how light it was, compared to now. i say that that's bullshit, life has never glimmered inside my head, only heat choking my guts out and an envy that threatened to eat me alive. Poet is not smiling, Poet was never only a poet, Poet doesn't believe in itself but we find something unbeautiful and raw and hold it tight between our hands. i say i'm not going to word it out. Poet knows this, but she does it anyway: taking over me, making it cinematic, tender, consumable. Poet turns into Artist turns into Essayist turns into What A Fraud. the last one, only i can see. the last one, what Poet always dreads. what we both dread together. don't think about your tongue, syllables tripping over one another, and this language that never belonged to you, Poet reminds me. don't think of your mouth, teeth misaligned, sweetness rearing its charred back of decay. but i'm thinking of it. i'm all ugly and unkind but all i want is stardust and sea salt. but i'm bad habits and dreams that i can never remember. but all i write is of that, pools of light that pierce and a softness never deeply felt. me and Poet, Poet and i, where do we draw the line between the two of us? since when did my words belong to Poet and not me? my hurt like fastfood. my pain scraped raw until its edge only a fleeting memory. but it's all my doing, it's all me. i shield myself against starkness, against direct contact. Poet never smiles, but she's nodding. and i'm still holding her hand, something radiant against my own flesh.
(originally written for venus magazine’s summer 2017 poetry workshop / published in kudeta magazine’s september 2018 limits issue)
