IN THE LIGHT OF

MY OWN DIGNITY

We ate chinese meatballs for breakfast and didn’t talk about much. I want to buy milk for you but I haven’t asked yet and I wonder if you’d rather get it yourself. How many gallons of whole milk could you buy for the price of that singer sewing machine you bought borrowed against the stipend money you’re waiting on from steve? How many wisdom teeth could I remove before that check gets cut and how much wisdom would I lose to anesthesia in october?

Hands hold dignity and mortality, my hands hold dignity like soft fruit, the peel is strong but feels fragile if I rub my fingers across the soft fur without intention, juicing a mild membrane meant to hold my own sense of worth above water. Thank you for holding space for my discomfort last night after that fender bender in a borrowed suzuki outside the indian restaurant on 20th street. Your hands on my shoulder held me inside my own body long enough to fall asleep. 

I want to take my top off and point my chest at the rain, the sky’s open orifice on me. I want to open my mouth and drag a wet hand across my ribcage, reveling in the accumulation of raindrops on my own warmth. I want to open my eyes and see you with your top off pointing your chest at the rain, mirroring me mirroring you. 

When we were finally back in your apartment after I got off the phone with the insurance claims officer and we had left the driver of the chevy suburban and were finally back in your kitchen with takeout from bayleaf and I put my hand on my heart to feel it racing and you asked if I wanted a hug and I said I’m so angry I want to pee on everything as I scooped butter chicken over rice on a white plate and you laughed and held me and told me about getting tboned by a work van when you were 16 and I wanted to kiss you and cry and crawl into a hole and start over with the knowledge that I should have parked two blockers further and walked. 

My third molar doesn’t care if the bacteria trapped between it’s crown and the soft gum of my mouth is contagious. The anesthesia waiting for me across the street with the oral surgeon couldn’t care about dignity or the soft membrane of my pride. That Lady said she hadn’t paid her insurance in two months and I didn’t feel like filing a police report - embarrassment moved behind a stronger man in my mind and I made some mistakes, kicking myself about forgetting to take pictures of the dent in her fresh bumper, something the size between a tennis ball and a softball stained with matt red paint. The way she asked me why I would hit her car made me want to defecate on her hands and rub them in her face but I used a sweet voice and stood tall enough to remember the weight of my own teachers salary before being bated for a fight. Between July and the first week of August I have spat in the face of my own dignity without breaking eye contact or running away, the roots of my security remaining locked up if shaky following an intrusive thought. 

My third molar doesn’t care if it infects me. If it interrupts my plan to kiss myself after a brush with embarrassment or insecurity. The soft membrane of my pride ruptures like the overripe pads of a peach, the juice beading up across tiny blonde hairs that tickle my heart, filling my brain and making me cry. I could defecate on the soft sense of my soul but these days I’d rather lick a wound and spread the emotional antiseptic I can only find in saliva. Butter chicken couldn’t lift me out of my shame but the milk and blueberries helped a little. That brown henley really put me to sleep. 

The first night when the infection got really bad and I was laying at the foot of that stupid bunkbed at the lakehouse with the flooded septic system and my mouth was hanging open, drool pouring from the edge of my cracked lips and I couldn’t swallow and all I could hear was the sound of my mothers laughter flooding the space between my eyes, laughing at me, and I was young again and her delight echoed between my ears as I soaked in my own distress, her mocking guffaws, my tears, my eyes, my eyes. 

As we spoke of labor and food, concepts and complex thought with my arms in the bathtub washing chemicals off an blue page, images of iron and history and men temporarily tore my attention from the grip of my fathers judgment, and I felt intelligent, miraculous that I could have received and reciprocated openness and shared thoughts freely and with affection when the timeless injunctions injected in me held my heart in a death grip following the sound of metal scraping metal down town — “I’m not stupid”.

I felt happier today than yesterday. I hadn’t held on to any nightmares and for this I felt relief. My body, in the moments before consciousness, remained relaxed long enough for a smile to spread, momentarily holding my heart before tendrils of dread teased my chest. Talking with my therapist about things transpiring made me wonder why shame shakes us so, our poor little hearts heave against the weight of embarrassment, guilt glides over, sticking like glue on soft tissues that tear. Scrolling through my emails I saw the message I had missed from the claims officer from AAA and my stomach churned. Picking up the phone to call her back called my heart into my throat and I stopped breathing. 

I admire my own elegance even when I struggle to see it. I admire my own will to bring beauty forward even when its accents are of ugliness and sometimes my beauty shines brighter against a swollen backdrop of proverbial rot, unanswered feelings fermenting like compost on a pile pollinated by dung beetles and their glittery leftovers. I thought I wanted to be a victim of circumstance, to be wronged by forces more powerful than myself — but really what I wanted was to have the core strength to stand purposefully in my own dignity and move like a large boat through the waters of my own agency - to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I matter. 

The distance between Orion’s belt loops sometimes feels like the space between me and the sense of security I hope to feel when my mistakes masquerade as mementos of my insignificance and irrelevance. In those moments I am the smallest thing imaginable, the molecular structure of my tears forking off from a center of grief. Each microscopic intersection splitting me and leading my separate selves further away from affection. I wanted to stand in the light of my own dignity as much as the surface of the earth breathes, moving in and out as moss on tree roots during a hurricane — the way each planetary breath blows precipitation around an already exquisite atmosphere. I would risk the comfort of denial to stand in the light of my own dignity, I would risk the overwhelming relief offered by ignorance to know my own worthiness and carry it with pride. I would be happy for me because I would have the capacity to cry tears of affection at myself with the light on. 

I look at my toes and they make me laugh because they are small and strong and carry me across miles of concrete and wood every day. I laugh because they spring and sprawl upon boulders left behind by the craters on the mountains overlooking aging riverbeds. When I laugh, looking at my toes with a sort of substanceless intoxication I remember that sometimes death also causes me to laugh and I remember a big wound tucked up inside a pocket of my heart no bigger than an antique coin purse and it’s much too small for such a big feeling. When I see this I begin to cry because my dignity shows me that my mortality is not the answer to my fear. When I know this I will risk the absence of ignorance to hold my own grief with the arms of dignity and kiss myself swirling over a wound that will finally breathe with the lung capacity that rivals the space between Orion’s belt loops and I will be happy for me and everyone else because my dignity shows me that we all matter both in the moments we share and those we learn about later. I will shake out the coin purse in my heart and let every feeling flow from a fresh orifice in the face of shame.

MEMORIES

i. I remember love. 

I remember love in the balance. My plump wrist risen in curiosity. Its weight held in the bosom of my body. The silhouette of my own arm against the blur of a ceiling I could not yet comprehend. My other arm clamped between my body and my mother’s body, a small fist whose fingers open and close in expectation. 

I remember moisture in the suction. My mother’s breast hanging on my open lips. A moment of stillness between shifts of bliss. A blanket of orange and pink pastels bleeds my memory. I remember quiet. The hinge of my wrist explored by malleable synapses, danced across a fresh brain. Twenty-eight is old enough to hunger for a child’s love. 

ii. I remember damage. 

I remember recoiling at the ejaculation of semen from my father’s erection. Eyes wide, surprise on the brow of a baby. I remember the exhale of a man and the smell of his spirit. Curiosity on the edge of a wound I could not yet comprehend. “What is that daddy?”

Five years is long enough to maintain fleshy membranes and fresh synapses. Five years is not long enough to callus and mold protection against the violation of a lifetime. Five years is too soon for secrets. “Do not stand in front of the window with the blinds open at night, naked.” Thirty years is old enough to know better. 

iii. I remember banging. 

I remember lying on the covers in the dark. Wondering why they were hammering in the street every night. I remember the beat of every blow in the distance. The men with their hammers in the street so clearly encapsulated in my tiny mind. When I am twenty I will learn it was the sound of my heart. So distant from my body I could not feel my heart’s pulse, powering my mind and breath — the mind that had been fresh and pink and plump and dancing. The mind that was at once callused and in caucus with its private army. Synapses slow and grey. The dance becomes a lightning storm. The storm guards the fleshy membrane. Twenty is too soon for regret. 


WOOD AND CANDY

I wish I could remember the first words ever spoken. Recalling remnants of a language louder than the lists of this lifetime. I want to reach into my liver and procure the first joyful sound that traveled through sludge. Liquor maims and molests my magnitude, sticking sick satisfaction up my ass with every dry heave. I prefer to crouch on the toilet. The way my bowels move is magnificent. The way men and women moved through my wounds with banality paled to the extravagance with which my parents propagated grief. If radical is of the root then I am returning, inhabiting the first words ever spoken by dust. Waste is propaganda spread to frighten you from the casualties of change. 

Keep asking why. The child is bathed in riches that were stolen from most of us. I know you are aware of wealth because of grave thefts in the mishandling of your own value. You were never a burden. They told you that you were bad with their eyes and the movements of their bodies. They lied to you. Nothing bad has ever happened here. Nothing bad has ever happened in your body. You are perfect but so were they. This is the gleam of authenticity that pervades your perception, your orbit reeling around the reality of these words. Every wound was meant to last. And we have held the movement of time, perfectly preserving pain by the fermentation of our flesh. I love you as in I see you, graciously accepting every fortunate fumble. 

Wonder winds me. My curiosity culminates in a collection of crude and inconsequential occasions. Corroding calluses could kill my sexy cynicism. What a waste. Do not underestimate the sanctity of sutures on a fresh wound. It’s hard to feel fresh after a while. We are all ugly sometimes. So many Sundays stomped on my stupid little spirit. I’m losing myself in the cold. These corduroy pants could not protect me from the cold snap slithering up my sleeves. Every time he told me to put on a sweater I wanted to pee on his face. He liked to tell me how bad he had it, that indifference would suit me more than indignation. He liked to put ideas in the air before my face, blowing them in my direction on the smoke of his cigarette. He liked to watch me wonder at potential, eternally enamored with what could be. I would inevitably crumble in time with the wood stove coals as I saw my own hope sweating off the side of his beer bottle. The string that suspended sly suggestions emerged in the foreground of my vision. I left my anticipation in the outhouse for him to shit on. 

Everytime my mother questioned her own strength I wanted to grab her ears with my teeth and blow spit in her mouth, screaming at the back of her throat, hoping my cries would arrive in her large intestine and crack the caked sediment of fear from her fragile femininity. She would radiate when given the opportunity. Never demanding space unless it could be captured from the fragile hands of a child. Smugly she would stumble with her own sexuality, fumbling temptation for anyone with eyes for her. I realized as my body began to bleed and my breasts began to bulge and my groin grew moist, mustering pubescent panic in my frontal lobe — I had been trained for a stage that could not be shared. If I had to be a whore I would not be hers. 

Wood and Candy creep up on my bank balance. Twelve bars and two bundles later I am almost ready to wrap up. I wish I could remember the first sounds uttered by organisms. They must have echoed off the edges of eternity without intention. How beautiful it must have been to never be perceived. Dust dances on each strip of plastic stacked in suspension above my bed. The windows leak wind and I am in myself. I will greet the lightswitch in the morning with grace. 

UNACCOMPANIED

I AM SO LONELY I COULD RIP MY SKIN OUT OF ITSELF AND CRY INTO YOUR MOUTH UNTIL MY THROAT IS HOARSE AND MY LIPS CRACK, BLEEDING ONTO THE HANDS I HOLD YOUR COLLARS WITH, THROBBING AND IN CONFLICT WITH THE DISGUST I USE TO PUSH MYSELF FURTHER AWAY FROM AFFECTION. I HAVE BULLIED MYSELF INTO LETHAL LITIGATIONS OF MISTRUST AND I CANNOT SEEM TO SETTLE A DISPUTE BETWEEN MY PASSIONS AND MY FEARS. HOW COULD YOU TRUST ME WITH YOUR TOUCH WHILE I BLEED OUT IN MY OWN ARMS AT THE FOOT OF YOUR GAZE?

I AM SO LONELY I HAVE CLUTCHED FRAGMENTS, GAZING AT THE SCREEN FOR HOURS INSTEAD OF THE EYES OF ANOTHER, IN SEARCH OF THE SATISFACTION OF INTIMACY ONLY ANOTHER SOUL CAN SATIATE. AUTHENTICALLY I REMAIN TRAPPED IN TREPIDATION, TORTURED BY THE MARGIN OF MY OWN INCREDULOUS CONTRADICTIONS. 

I HAVE BEEN LONELY FOR SO LONG THAT I HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO MOVE MY MUSCLES, THE CAPACITY TO CELEBRATE EXUBERANCE IS BURIED IN THE RUBBLE OF MY FEAR, FANTASIZING FEEBLY OF THE FUTURE I REMAIN FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO STUMBLE THROUGH, THOROUGHLY FRATERNIZING WITH FOGGY FIGURINES FORMED FROM DYSREGULATION. IN PRIVATE, PUNISHMENT PERVADES MY CORTEX, SAVAGELY SABOTAGING FRESH SCABS.

GRIEF

In the kitchen

i. Acceptance on the front porch

Something soothing for the teacher. Like a summer’s day or the leaves falling on my breast. Something delicious and delightful, dillydallying and daydreaming about things like the wind or the season changing only one time. I am not fraught as severely as I once was. This time I am in love and it is not again. Everything is precious. 

ii. Spite at the kitchen counter

My brain changes every time I change my underwear. Discharge leaking through a pinched tube. I am alone and not again. My body is soft on the outside and hard on the inside, gooey and gigantic further in. Melting meat. Savory the way yeast is sour and pungent. Lathered. Lick the spoon, leaving saliva, lick the pink skin around my teeth, wet fur and flesh surround my lips. 

iii. Bargaining with the faucet

Maybe bodies touching is like sour dough or pork fat. Not meant to be lovely. Maybe it is meant to be strange. Dragging a wet hand across my open mouth, lingering — I understand: the inclusion of lovers sliced like a dull knife, seductive and smelly, violent as the 7th cigarette. Tap water drips from my wrist, landing on my clavicle, running behind my half buttoned blouse.

iiii. Shame in the sink

I resolved to be desire. Drugged by older boys, compliant, sluggish from the inhalation of tar and tobacco. My lungs were angry and so was my skin. Angry and superficially hydrated. Sticky and moist, inflamed from that dirty little drug denial. I wanted to be everything they wished I could be. I can’t do it anymore as the chemistry snags on disgust. She caught up, chemo on my heart. One cigarette at 2pm and one again at 7. This pack has lasted longer than one week. The discomfort of my memory has faded now. Maybe I am letting. 

v. Acceptance through the windowsill

Cotton cloth dries the flap of skin between my fingers bringing me further away from death and closer to the death that is further away. I will drink oat milk and go back to bed. Glee gallops through my chest. Alone for the first time every time. I am pleasant. Ten steps forward nine steps back. How terribly tragic and hopeful. I ate pizza instead of my panic but they were the same. I am alive.