written at close of 2022, still more-or-less accurate from year-later’s eyes
I finally discovered over-the-counter
sleeping pills. Feminist porn. A good-enough
diagnosis. Escitalopram. Etel Adnan.
Sending nudes. Taking space. Voice notes.
Confessed my love to someone. Got
rejected, sort of. Kept talking. Talked
so much. Talked to god, like, Are you
there? Thought about language.
Thought too much. Gave up on ever knowing
what "too much" means. Couldn't stop
writing poems. Took up running. Watched
the seasons do their overdone beautiful
thing. Line breaks. Stanzas. Repetition.
Kept saying I love you to everyone
who would listen. Kept listening. Thought
maybe it's time to learn how
to be quiet. Fell in love with silence
all over again. In love with scare quotes.
Quotation. The difference between self and world
and how it's not a difference. Fucked
with tense shifts. Fucked with the past.
Believed in the future. Danced alone,
with others, in bedrooms and nightclubs,
with the contemporary. Fucked with
the lyric. Kept saying I. Kept trying
to tell you something so unbearably true,
even when I wasn't sure whether you wanted
to know it. Tried to learn new ways to ask.
Fucked it up. Kept trying. Fell back in love
with litany. With my own I; her crazy
unreliability. With all I’s chaos. With chaos
theory. With feeling normal, a good-enough version
of normal. Didn't read Winnicott. Didn't read
Freud. Gave up on being comprehensive.
Gave up on trying to be anyone other
than exactly whoever I found myself being.
Made some new friends. Lost some. Missed
them. Missed moss. Missed the hills I used
to look out at on my daily walks. Knew I'd see them
again, one day. Felt like that was enough.
Knew I'd see you again, someday, too.
Which is something like "enough," something
I need a new language for, a new illusion,
a new use. Fucked with the present.
Breathed in new errors. Felt human.
Forgave myself for it. Felt good-enough
to finally say I love you and know
whatever happened, next, would be—
would have to—something I could live with.
Lived into various clichés. Let my body
(my stupid, splendid, various, human,
vulnerable, surprisingly-strong body)
love things. Gave up on trying to stop it.
Realized I couldn't, not really, never had
been able to, not even a little bit, not even
at all. Loved you. Kept loving you and loving
you and loving you, even if—when—(yes, I
know) I was really only doing that alone.
