If You're the Devil, then it Isn't Me Telling this Story

Tonight the rain sounds like tidal waves, like I could be in the ocean but not drowning. It reminds me of packed dirt trails, or running so fast and so far, surf swirling around my bare feet. I don’t remember if we swam naked that night. I just remember throwing up behind a garbage can and belly button piercings and Brakes, Susie! Brakes! Keep your hands on the wheel. I just remember how the ocean felt like bath water; how it made me lonely for lakes. I’m always craving clear, still water.  

My co-worker almost smiles when she tells me about her hearing loss. Says 98% of the time there are no complications. Says the surgery should have been routine. She misses the sound of the rain the most. Sometimes I can almost remember how rain smells. I’m always thinking fresh cut grass and 6am when I think rain. Or sometimes it smells like summer camp circa 1997. Don’t ask me why.

I’m thinking about you tonight, but not in the hurting way. Remembering when you left poetry folded just-so on my pillow, annotated with your thoughts. I imagine you studying or drinking whiskey or kissing her and it doesn’t matter. She might be a killdeer game, or your soulmate; what we’re doing is never what we think we’re doing. We are all the human being stories we’re telling ourselves. I’ve started leaving poetry (folded just-so) on my pillow. I’ve started taping it to the wall above my bed, painting it on the insides of my eyelids.

Daphne Gottlieb, Tyler Knott, Jean Gallagher, Eileen Myles.

I’d like to memorize them like my life depends on it, because maybe it does. Don’t kiss trainwrecks. Don’t kiss knives. Don’t kiss. I want to write you a letter but I’m afraid. I want to hold onto this quiet.

Pablo Neruda, Doc Luben, Margaret Atwood, e.e. cummings.

Pretend there was no wreck—you watched the train go by and felt the air brush your face and that was it. Another train passing. You do not need trains. You can fly. You are a superhero. And there is no kryptonite.

My kitten thinks I’m a superhero. My stomach thinks I should eat more often, says my face will start to look gaunt. Do I look like an AIDS victim? My room says I need to open a window. I didn’t realize my room knew the meaning of the word “metaphor”, but I’m not surprised. No you look like you cry too much. I’m always choosing the rain, and tonight that seems ok. The rain sounds like waves breaking on my window pane, feels like looking up from the bottom of a bathtub.

Forget her name.

But I can’t because sometimes your name feels like the only thing I have to hold onto. I imagine you smell like the rain, but in reality everything smells like scar tissue to me.

-b