Tomorrow, at 11:15 AM, I will be a college graduate.
And at approximately 12:00 pm, I will be slightly tipsy.
FOUR YEARS, I’VE EARNED IT.
From heaven
We say that this compulsion is not us
and that you and I are caution and all of its epitomes.
.
But sweet pea, dearest homegrown rhubarb apple pie of my eye,
our sudden selves are ever the more true.
.
Though we are both cumbrous and clumsy
we are, in our own distant ways moving towards one another.
.
Don’t stew in your incoherence, don’t lie to god, or let me lie to god,
we can’t deny, we are as sudden as spring.
Me and My gin, and my Bath tub, and my library copy of Lorrie Moore’s “Self Help”
It really doesn’t get better than that. I love my romantic nights with myself.
Easy come, easy go. Easily said and done, right?
Wrong.
I fell like a child, in a day or less.
And I fell asleep last night expectingt to grow up back
into a proper thinking woman, and then I’d forget
everything, and go back to my matured and aged
reasonable melancholy.
But I woke up still smiling, I woke up still vibrating
and thinking (though not clearly.)
Just shaved my legs for the first time in two weeks. Yay! We’re ready for the beautiful light of day!
Drinking spiked chai in my new beautiful bra, watching the moon and contemplation occurs
God, this fabric really knows how to hug a tit.
I wonder how much amaretto I have to drink to get
alcohol poisoning.
That’s a lot of chai.
What a gypsy moon. It’s a finger nail.
A skinny orange potato chip
and it’s calling me to dance like everyone’s watching.
I think it’s time to go to sleep.
But who needs sleep
when you’ve got yourself?
ONCE you have sealed the borders of your bodies
once you cannot release them into a lover’s custody
all that is left for love is to be committed
like madmen to the lonely privacy of cells
Drink conversation down to the bottom of the cup
and still there will be silences that words can’t drown
still the blood will beat on the doors you don’t answer
all of the doors to ecstasy that you have shut.
Two people on a bed trying to make love
your hands won’t hold each other you turn away
to separate sleep only to startle yourselves awake
in the thick of coupling arms and mouths
full of each other some unspeakable desire
grinds you against each other like continental plates
at the world’s foundation but waking once again
you pull apart to opposite corners of the heart
and what you don’t say is a dance floor between you.
Soft as ivy pulling brick to pieces
she puts down roots in you you fear
her hold on you is all that keeps you whole
and fear leads to shame and shame to anger
and anger to bitterness she must own
what she has broken you will hold her
hostage to your unhappiness.
“
| — | Craig Arnold- from the Poem “Couple from Hell” from Made Flesh |
