And
I've got welts on my mind to signify all my accomplishments.
Hello kittens. While reading old posts for Throwback Thursday, I was
confronted with an uncomfortable truth. I’ve survived this breakdown before.
The last month or so I’ve been grappling with a disconnected déjà vu sensation. Or if not
exactly déjà vu something in the vein of predestination; a predilection towards
self-destruction. Two years ago, smoking on my porch she said I hate when you destroy yourself like this.
Last year on my roof bumping elbows with the moon after a few too many
nightmares. Two nights ago walking home after a poetry show. I cried because I
was cold, and alone, and alive. I cried because I could.
I’ve survived this breakdown before, but never quite like this. They
say You are more than the sum of your
failures and Imagine yourself as
limitless and so you will be or Shit
has surely gone down, but said shit need not define you or your days and I
love them for that and so much more.
Two nights ago stumbling through a car crash with the flashing lights
and large men in heavy jackets bearing badges. A woman weeping on the corner
and stars looking like the idea of stars. Like caricatures of themselves. I
wanted to slip a piece of shattered windshield into my pocket. I’m adept at
carrying wreckage. Instead I kept walking, and maybe I’m still walking, and
maybe I always will be.
Now it’s Thursday and instead of throwing back I’m looking forward,
because I’ve survived this before and I know there’s an end. I wrote this poem
almost a year ago. I’ve read it seven times on three different stages; embedded
it in my memory as a reminder that the only constant is inconsistency. The fever
breaks. My hands become my hands again. I add another ring to the scar tissue of my memory.
Anatomy of a
Breakdown
Tuesday
The fault lines of
your mother’s breakdown begin to
echo through your
hollow bones,
your blood aches
heavy with heredity
and slivers of
purples.
Your hands will
tremble for a hundred
years or more.
Wednesday
When the infection
begins to spread, don’t panic.
Amputate and
cauterize
before the gangrene
enters your bloodstream.
Your heart will look
smaller than you
expected,
laid out like a dead
kitten
on the exam table.
Disregard the girl
lodged in the left
ventricle.
Thursday
Time becomes
mutable.
You might be cork
floating,
a pulpy clot in the
cheap red liquid,
you replace
your blood with
gasoline
and search for a
match.
You drink your
dinner
and dream of feasts.
Friday
Pack memories into
heavy
bodybags. Carry them
beneath your eyes.
Remember laying your
body
across the linoleum,
how she chewed the
brittle crust
from the salted rim
of your hipbone,
lapped tequila from
the basin of your navel.
As the alcohol slid
down your naked sides
you thought about
open heart surgery,
wondered about the
cavity
inside your chest.
Saturday
You want to ask the
girl at the bar
if she found the
poems
you tucked behind
her teeth.
Her stranger’s hands
rattle over
each knot of your
spine,
you could be the
ladder she climbs
into ecstasy. Your
whiskeyheavy breaths
are prayers of
deliverance.
In the morning
her naked back will
be a foreign country
you explore with
eyes/hands/mouth.
Sunday
Trace origami lines
into your
arms and thighs so
you never again forget
where to fold.
The moon surges
tidal waves through your frame,
lodges shipwrecks
(heavy with artifacts)
in the cove of your
throat. There:
5 mood rings
spitting purple,
a blue heron wing,
the
scarlet cleft of a
fish’s slit belly.
The moon asks you to
be full with her.
Swilling down
seawater, you
are left gasping.
Monday
You know the purple
orange glow
of the night sky is
just city light
refracted off the
low-slung clouds
but in that instant
it could be god.
Your mouth aches for
butterscotch
but only tastes
smoke and lighter fluid,
your lungs are
low-slung clouds,
heavy with god and
apocalypse.
Tuesday
self-inflicted wounds
begin
to peel and flake.
Lodge the memory
beneath your nail
beds.
You are growing a
new skin,
days woven into
spiderweb scar tissue.
Under the shower
head, your sorrow
leaves you cleansed.
Grind saltwater
exfoliant into
both cheeks
wake fresh-faced in
the morning.
Wednesday
Splay your puzzle
piece body
across purple sheets
and
dare a stranger to
cobble you
in her bloodstream.
Press your tongue
against her scars
and wonder what she
burned for,
press your stories
into her palms
like offerings. Like
prayers.
You tell her you’re
a narcissist.
You tell her you’ve
almost died twice.
You tell her, and
tell her and tell and tell and…
I love you all so much more than you know. Thank you for staying here
with me.
-b
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