The Blood Barn

A picture of my root / frozen plains or fog / on Pluto

Who licks the ivy?

Dear L[1],

There are textures that sit behind the world.

Love,
C 

 

 

 

Dear C[2],

I am thinking of quitting poetry to sing. Maybe my voice will be more welcome there than at poetry readings.

I came here because I wanted to squeak. I came to writing in order to sing without having to train a singing voice, so that I could squeak as squeakily as I felt—I wanted to stop training toward what other people expected to see from my female body. I wanted to talk weird. I wanted to talk as weird as I talk to myself and my loved ones. I wanted my public talk and private talk to be more unified.

I have a body that fits pretty well with what people want of it most of the time. Most of the time it fits pretty well with what I want of it. I wanted to stop presenting this pretty well body in a pretty well way because I didn’t feel pretty well and it felt like lying to talk pretty well.

When I give readings it’s hard to figure out how to be anything more than pretty well. I’m so well trained to look pretty well and talk pretty well in public. I want to make an audience listen to something that is more than my pretty well body. Even if I wear a pretty dress to my reading. I want to make them listen to my body and more.

You wrote to me once about giving readings and how you feel your audience is always fighting you. And then, in “Reading as a Wildflower Activist / Pt. 2,” you wrote:

“A Flower is / A Fruit and A Wound,

is what I think when a Man tells me

a Man who heard me read / said, 

“I wish she wrote the way she talks.[3]”

What I hear the Man say to you is: Don’t talk if I don’t get it. Don’t talk if I can’t understand. Stop talking to me if I can’t understand you. Stop talking to me in a way that confuses me. Stop talking to me in a way that makes me uncomfortable. 

I hear:

I wish she wrote the way she talks –

I wish she was just her body—

I wish she was only her body –

I wish her body was on paper –

I wish she read her body to me–

I wish she read her body for me–

I wish she read her body for me along–

I wish her body was all there was there–

I wish she wrote the way her body– 

I wish she wrote the way her body lulls me–

I wish she wrote the way she lullabies–

I wish she would lull me–

I wish she always wanted to be a mother— 

I wish she played across my belly and I watched over—

I wish she played with me like a young girl should—

I always hear this. I always hear that I should play like a young girl should / that I should stop talking if that Man can’t understand. That I should try to say it real pretty or stop talking. 

“I wish she wrote the way she talks.”

I wish I could write away from the way I talk – I wish my talking could move my body / not just my mouth. I wish my talking could move my body to a new location when often my location is stuck / feels stuck as pretty well / my body can’t escape the stuckness but my speech can / my speech can fall out of the stuck.

I’m thinking now about what it means to “fall out” like in Kelin’s new book (The Gloria Stories). Especially re: weight and women and space. It feels exciting -- a way to move beyond what now feels stale: the topic of men taking up too much space. I’m tired of talking about that, I’m tired of the tumblr of the men with their legs spread wide on the subway[4]– I’m tired of hearing myself talk about it. I GET SO TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT THAT. There’s more for me than this wily wise whine – 

What happens when you fall out– always? When you’re always falling out of what someone else wants of you? What happens when part of your body falls away or out – or is taken out— or is told it should be taken out– what is LEFT?

Kelin on queefs: AIR FALLING OUT IS A CONSTANT REMINDER OF THE

OCCUPIERS OF SPACE.[5]

What’s left in that air? What’s left in the place where the air came out of? What’s in the air when our speech is there, but we are not allowed to be there? When a person writes something a man doesn’t like—what’s in the air?

I have to fall back on something that stays in the air. Because I’m still in the air even if no one likes what I’m saying. I want to believe there’s something in the air when I read, when I write. I find myself returning to the word soul as a potential resource: something I never thought I would do. My father used to always mock spirituality but the soul has meaning to me the more I carve away / fall out–

What is left when I fall out– what is left when I fall out of talking pretty well? What is of value if no one understands me— what is of value fundamentally? When is how much space I take up relevant / irrelevant? What if nothing is of value and what, then, is that no-thing?

Maybe it’s because I’m small– my body is small– I’ve always been told how small I am– cute– coming up to chest level on other people– my head is about at nipple height on my husband– cute— but I feel too large– curves etc– belly etc– I developed a butt for the first time when I was 25 and was so confused about how part of me could expand without another human inside me– I felt guilty for more air being taken by part of my body– until men started to tell me they liked it– but I still feel some of that air-taking guilt. I don’t want space expanding inside me unless it can fall out. 

The only way for my body to expand that is acceptable now that I am thirty: a baby— I want a baby to fall through me: not expand me, but lay upon my stomach and fall out through my back– clear out any need I could have of producing– so I don’t have to talk to be honest– I only have to just produce. If I can produce I don’t have to talk. My lady body doesn’t need to talk to be good / pretty well– it just needs to make a baby.

What if I don’t want to?

I have less money these days and I start to need— I start to buy things so I can feel good, a habit I’ve fallen out of for the last few years. I get anxious and I want to be more clear to people. I start to prepare again for (newly) what everyone wants from me. I fall back on talking pretty well. It is labor– emotional labor– social labor– unseen labor— but still I want to be what everyone wants from me– sometimes that’s tiring but sometimes I think it’s the world I want to live in. I said to S: I don’t want to stop doing this work / I want to live in a world where everyone does this work— I want to live in a world where everyone is doing that labor making something other people want, but/and still making themselves slippery –

Is there anything to be said that isn’t what someone needs from me? This is a real question I have. This is my gender training: I’m not sure if there’s anything to be said, written, or spoken if it isn’t something someone needs from me.

Is there anything beyond what people need from me? What else is there? Will I ever get over who my sister needs me to be– who J needs me to be— will I ever get over who A wanted me to be / a heartache poet— a poet – so I was a poet for a man?

Did I become a poet for a man? I think in part. I came to poetry because a man let me in, and let me in again. I am ashamed to be a poet for a man— but is it possible enough time has passed so that now I am just a poet? That I am JUST as a poet / JUST in BEING a poet– as in, justice has been served and I am in balance on the scales? 

The scales keep tipping– maybe that’s life / what I want from life– but also always I find myself seeking what is RIGHT– Am I JUST– am I OKAY– is this labor WORTHY– does it make me GOOD –

I love (& hate) that in poetry I’ve come upon a labor / work / joy that will never be of value in our exchange system. In poetry school, Peter was always trying to convince us baby poets to back out while we still could. He’d say, it will always be superfluous – that is what it IS, no one will care, no one will pay you, and yet somehow I keep yearning, yearning to be told that doing labor as a poet is valid, valuable, good, good enough to be more than just for a man / for a person.

But what could ever be more / more worthy than to do something FOR a person? That’s my bottom line question: doing FOR– I want to— to contribute, is it bad (automatically) because / when it’s for a man? For a non-man person? For a group?

I pledge allegiance to speaking.

Part of the joy / job / joy of the letter / poem is to cast out to know something. To cast out— but also to fall through because to write there has to be someone there to fall through / with— I feel often I cannot write without something to fall through.

This morning I fell through Danez Smith’s whole book at once / I fell through because I wanted to— I swallowed— my father used to always accuse me of swallowing books instead of reading them– he was in awe of how fast I read but couldn’t believe that I could be getting something from through them if I swallowed books so quickly.

Even in writing now, to you, I write and writing comes easily because I write FOR / TO / TO FALL THROUGH. I hope this doesn’t feel like I want to fall through you– erase you– not see you— I just read in Maggie Nelson’s new book about how Wayne Koestenbaum got chastised by someone he wrote love letters to, they wrote back: next time, write to me –[6] 

In an interview[7] Maggie Nelson said she thinks readers should read The Argonauts quickly and take it in all at once. I want to take it in. I followed her instructions and I fell through Danez Smith’s book so quickly. I thought about my own whiteness and race afterwards – consuming— did I use his book only to fall through– to charge myself up with his meaning– to make myself less guilty— to write— to write upon? I want to write with, not upon. What does that look like?

What would it be like to fall through someone / something and not take something FROM them— not take OF them? I’m so grateful that I have no penis to use as I fall through– or no penis grown onto my body– because I can’t assault in that particular way. My falls don’t go to that kind of assault– but where do my falls go?

I wish she wrote the way she talks–

I wish she FELL the way she TALKS–

I wish she FELT the way she TALKS– 

she talks and falls, writes and falls.

Does the penis always have to take something away from someone as it falls through?

Does the writing always have to take something away from someone as it falls through? The speaking?

What if taking up space didn’t mean taking from?

What if space isn’t finite? 

Danez Smith: I wonder what song would have to play / To make her a black blur of joy & pepper mane.[8]

Maybe joy doesn’t have to be finite. What creates joy isn’t finite. But space IS finite / it is / it is right now – on this planet – in these bodies – in these races and classes we’re socialized to have.

Talk of the penis filling a void that needs to be filled is over-done but: what if the void just got bigger with that filling? What if the void only just got bigger when the penis got in / near it – what if the void didn’t get filled up, and always had more space left? This is not good for capitalism, to always have more space.

But also, what if you enjoy being filled up? I love to be filled up– I love to feel that I haven’t any crannies in me that need to be filled – with books / sex / people / food– I love to swallow— I love to feel full– maybe because mostly other people don’t force me?

But in other ways I hate to feel full / with food– it means I’ve not been able to control my body in the way I’ve wanted to– been taught to– I know pretty well how to restrict this body. I get angry, angry at myself when I am full, for letting myself get full, because it means I will get fat, have an excess / larger than the version of me I wanted: the version of me that has plenty of room to hold others / reach out to others with an offer to hold— hold anything in. 

My favorite version of me is not full because it has room for anything anyone can throw at me. I will make room for it. I will find spare room for that. I will dodge to catch your needs in my spare room– are you impressed by how well I dodge and dance? Are you impressed by my room?

I make room for everyone in every place in my life except for in my writing. I don’t slash out a space for everyone in my writing. This is where that Man can’t find me.

Hillary Gravendyk: pioneers slash only toward a territory / they remember[9]

Perhaps in order to slash toward something we don’t remember– something new– we can’t be pioneers.

So let’s not be pioneers. Let’s give up on being pioneers. Let’s slash away from what we remember. Let’s not colonize new spaces. Let’s not slash toward.

Perhaps in order to avoid colonizing ourselves and pioneering in this work, I cannot slash toward. I cannot slash / I must instead make room in what I have already / slash myself / let the blood be / honor this slashing behavior of making room. Let’s take a look at what we have in the room.

pioneers slash only toward a territory / they remember

And also Gravendyk, who wrote this, lived with so much pain. And she made so much beauty. Maybe her saying this is itself a lesson in how we can go forward / keep in touch / slash ourselves, meaning live in the pain and slash at it rather than away from it.

Anne Carson: Pilgrims were people who figured things out as they walked.[10]

To walk / slash / speak.

I’m good at keeping in touch. L___ reminded me I’m so good at keeping in touch that sometimes it’s hard to be my friend because no one can be as good at keeping in touch as me– she’s worried about disappointing me. I reach out– I reach out– I reach out– I slash / but am I reaching up and over— am I slashing / falling out? 

Perhaps I keep in touch this way because I don’t want to do it in my writing. I slash out toward some pretty distant places. Can you help me learn how to slash close? How to slash pretty well? 

Youna Kwak on Roland Barthes: we keep our distance from each other as a means of remaining proximate.[11] 

I’m good at keeping in touch from a distance. I like to be far– I can get filled up and still have endless amounts of room. I want to learn to slash close and survive it.

Like you wrote: a previously closed indwelling of blood / shedding / or about to dream / Your skin scared and free.[12]

If I keep slashing the Man at the reading might not understand me, but I might get scared and free. The Man might have to slash himself.

Brenda Hillman: how good to be able / how good to steer & grin / thinking paraffin / & in that sentence shack / an ache of novelty.[13]

I am able, I am pretty well, and so I must slash / I must slash at the sentence. I shack up with the sentence and then slash away. I pick a fight with it to get that ache of novelty– I say the shack is shitty and useless and back away– and then I take it back. I sing for the sentence sometimes, but only when I decide.

What I am singing for is the choice to sing an easy song sometimes, a screechy song sometimes. What I am singing for is to write a full grammatically correct sentence sometimes and sometimes not. I want us all to fall out at will. I want us all to invite ourselves to fall out only at will. 

I wish I could fall out without slashing— I wish I could reach out without making anyone feel they had to– even though I want– always want– 

I wish I could keep in this kind of touch.

Love,
L

Dear L,

There are textures that sit behind the world / that refuse our delusions.

I touched the ketchup bottle last night and remembered how I used to measure out exactly how many servings I had eaten. I felt how I used to write it down / how close I kept those details / how I tried to warm them.

I touched the ketchup bottle / the red ice cube between us / I felt how long it will take to write this letter to you / to push for this space

/ Are we ever the good blood once it has melted? Once it has melted into the earth hard / or loose around warp / the flock shadow of being / in this country I count the mud as I pack it against ************************/ as it melted against / myself To push for this space as I eat it As I eat it / do I count it Do I ask us / Is this about loyalty or is this about the mystery between us

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What do I write / to help you feel me / before I reach you? I’m not sure I’m keeping in touch But I’m reciting two (pecan) trees to you / They are married they are fucking they are talking sisters they are the Mourning Moon they are talking scar tissues in the Boiling Forest / I’m reserving space inside being next to each other

“suffer wild animals in the company of their spinach”
-Brandon Shimoda, Evening Oracle (read @ lunch)

The card I picked this Halloween weekend was The Ace of Cups / Is this about loyalty  or is this about the mystery between us? / two heavycloaked bodies in the snow

ragged lumps Their foreheads / wavering in the shape / of a pair of cupped hands / a layer of text / sliced or draped / My first thought was that it was us / My first thought was that the words were indecipherable / the layer the text in its most terrifying aspect / but the Boiling Forest / it’s rotated /

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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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IT'S GONNA BITE YR FEELINGS OUT

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/  At a  certain point the  ice of one of  them will  have melted  before the other.  That person will be the good

blood[14] / ******************************************************************************************

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Am I compelled, L, / to include this ***** from Lygia Pape’s performance piece / the layer the text in its most terrifying aspect /

because I am wishing again that I wrote poems that could be called / tenderly packed / immediately melted against a body / or listening as poems / and not these horrific details / how I tried to warm them? Is this about loyalty or is this about the mystery between us?

*

No / I won’t repeat language / this way.

 

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I remember **** sitting in the gold sequence I remember sitting in the gold roar **** of the poetry farm / our new home / while N pointed at WCW’s gold piece / a wheelbarrow on the property / folded into the ghost / **** / the decay pools of pecan trees / I described to N knowing /

before I wrote poems / that I would never write poems / *********************************** / instead I would write poems / the Boiling Forest / the layer the text in its most terrifying aspect / the mystery between us / ragged lumps of snow / sliced and draped / Poetry, Georgia I wonder who lives there?

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No / I won’t repeat language / this way.****************************************************

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Am I compelled, L, / to include this ***** because I will never be the good *****? Is it because I will never be the good women in poetry because there still aren’t any women in poetry?

 

*********      ***                      *   *********      ***                      *   *********      ***                      *

 
 

 

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Lygia Pape’s text insists / no one is the good ***** /

There are textures that sit behind the world / that refuse our delusions.

I will never be the good ***** I will never be the good women in poetry because there still aren’t any women in poetry.

*

(Treat me like) Treat me like
(Treat me like) Treat me like
(Fire) Fire, (Fire) Fire
(Into the pain) Into the pain
(Into the pain) Into the pain
-Lion Babe

*

****

I went to a reading / I went to a reading in a small room / over a Jamaican restaurant / close to the rain and downtown It was painted black /

Was this the night I rode in the back of the van with large boxes? No, I wasn’t reading that night. This night / I was reading / I was working. My chiropractor was there. I hugged her. I touched my hip ************    *** / the *****-soaked feathers and told her how much stronger I felt / 

I asked N to help me read the parts of my poems that hold layers / another voice / the text in its most terrifying aspect. I wore a sleeve / I wore a boot / I try to consider how I can / I try to acknowledge that I want /

to express style sometimes / And by style I think I mean a seen-ness / or an encounter / an arousal or a performance of my body by my body as its only arousal / a shock I can tolerate / a shock or an opening I can offer / the *****-soaked feathers.

I got up / I said,

Who licks the ivy?
Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy?
Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy?
Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy?
Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy? Who licks the ivy?

***************                  *************************

********                                                              *** After the reading a woman came up to N and I /

After the reading a woman came up to N and I / We were talking / when a woman came up to us and thanked N for reading __[15] poem / She thanked N for being the good ***** / She called it his

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I once wrote:

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“The reading I did in graduate school / in the shadows / in the light / changed the way I thought of myself as a student / and, in turn, a reader. I was an undergraduate reading Beckett (“Then in my eyes and in my head a fine rain begins to fall, as from a rose, highly important.”) for the first time in a Modern Irish and British Literature course when I called my mother and tried to explain that I realized I was very sick / anorexic. Writing with my friend E has helped me begin to understand that this expression of my body was very much related to my desire to be a perfect girlstudent / to prove I was not a guest / a thief / to prove I was intelligent / that I would do anything to feel alive in language / despite the fact that my sentences were too poetic / observant but unpredictable / in the ways they fleshed themselves out. The result of shaking. The result of trembling / before. How can I be real, How can I speak, I asked myself to the point that my body touched its own explosion and bled. In graduate school, I realized I could no longer / disappear.”[16]

I once wrote:

I could no longer / disappear

But I still do /

But I still / won’t

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I saw A for the first time since our tour / In Support of Repulsive Women / in Ohio last weekend. What does the body that manifests / the stone that manifests / know in advance? We surprised her and J. A’s hair and sweater is beautiful / is the reason all the questions in this poem are italicized / “Eleven thousand times, I am a stranger / Passing artifacts, ruins, afflictions, the path / Parting from the heart, maybe / I am a girl after all the girls, I said, I mean / That is what I told her” –Brandon Shimoda (read on the bus / a few stops from the poetry farm). She / in hair and margarita / so beautiful / hands me a stone wrapped in brown paper. How do we carry all that happens to / __[17]? I want to help U feel U / I want to be with U when I’m not / How should I? “The horror of abstraction,” N says on the bus / with me. The stone is chunky and the color of this poem. It was made by burning / an amethyst / the Boiling Forest in the cupped hands against your forehead. It is powered by the Sun / you hold it to your Solar Plexus / and it becomes the stone that manifests / the physical healer / the active healer / the Merchant’s Stone / the stone of sex + $ in the hands of a woman / Is this the world / that manifests Does it know in advance / We called her Jewels stuck to the mountain the bodies stuck / to the rock to the sea /

astonished at the brokenness we felt I experience / everything / in my body I’m not sure you can imagine how much it is told to hold how it must rash and peel and swell to hold more / a poem a secret seen and unseen again / This place where things are held Is this the world / that manifests / I don’t trust decorating / the language, the details, the abstraction that folds / her Jewels stuck to the mountain / the bodies stuffed there / The horror of abstraction, N says on the bus / with me. He says it about a student who didn’t read the book / but tried to speak about it as though he had / as though he could fathom what was not only unfathomable / but had been ignored by choice / his choice / I know anything could’ve happened / my consumptive son / but what if what happened is he didn’t have to listen when he was asked to hold it / to hold it in his body / but what if what happened is he could say something vague until the details didn’t matter The horror of abstraction I hope this haunts you, N said in reply / I hope this book haunts you

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There is  ***** everywhere
There / ***** everywhere

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<<<<<<>>>>When A hands me the stone wrapped / in brown paper / I feel intensely / that A sees me / a lavender smudge in the Boiling Forest How our bodies survive How

our bodies find themselves / thriving there harshly / refusing a word like survive[18] / I know because the life of the stone / emphasizes the heavy soreness of the body stuck to the rock about to burst / stuck to the mountain lifting / the physicality of healing / the stone that manifests / my body has spent much of its life manifesting / space / a thrilling witness / in language where there isn’t any space in language / a thrilling witness to the danger where there is space in language / in the world / for the stuck body / for what is about to burst / Yr poems r so intense / They’re so intense! / Yr poems r so intense!!! /

I went to Ohio last weekend and M asked me a /?/ as I sat in front of his students / holding the stone A gave me with her hands / roses held above a turquoise strain of water / a turquoise strain of rock / something shredded throughout / w/ ribbons. I answered. I said, My body tries to save me vividly / It swells My eyes / they swell when I’m in danger / They flake a little My fingers peel or I rash when I’m in danger / My breath gets a rash and it swells and my breath explodes / is sometimes a scar / The Blood Barn / I hold in my hip / It has always been painful / to be saved by my body / It has always been intimate /

The first time my body / the physical alarm / the physical healer went off inside the language inside a dirtywindow / of classroom / I almost died / I almost disappeared / Because I couldn’t eat / I couldn’t see myself mouth / in the world / in the world that doesn’t want so many of us unless we’re in moneyed suffering / moneyed happiness A living backslash / who smiled up at the flannel person she was having sex with when he made fun of how much she was eating / for the first time in three days / Yr gonna get fat! Yr poems r so fat!! They’re so fat!!

When I was a teenage girl / about to be 20 I entered a wordless state / It is still painful and intimate / still wordless though No, I won’t survive this way No, I won’t repeat language this way / because I do intend to word it To arm her / I came to poetry to speak / A stabbing unfolds I wait for it and I look it /

 Bhanu Kapil’s Blog, December 8^th, 2015

My chiropractor touches my back with just the tips of her fingers / as part of a healing exercise / and my whole body shivers and she says my body and I / we are very close / I went to Ohio and I answered a / ? / by saying that I can only insist that my body is real / that we are very close /

*

Question: What is it like for you to communicate? / What do you want to communicate?
To listen to / or describe a difference in thinking
To receive / transmit a difference in thinking
The first time N described the way he experienced thought /
I felt terrified /
Part of me wanted to leave /
F told me / the way I described
/ thinking / feeling / while we were
living together / made her wonder
if / she was a dead person

M asked me this question and I held my stone and I tried to say how writing remains / an unimaginable activity / Love Fell / it landed so private so disgusting / that it shouldn’t exist / that it is carnage / to listen to it for long /

To pack against To melt against yourself:
The ability to insist on being close
to the unspeakable revolution / of thought’s texture
/ someone else’s We read in a wreckage

It is an incredible boundary / A king so far from a king / that is somehow open / alive / malleable / Who are you when I’m not with you? Who are you when I’m not with you / but we are together? Distance is contorted or it contains a rhythm Their thoughts / migrate / egg stars in the vein a public howling / the thinking of others / streams through the world sliced and draped We read in a wreckage / what does touch and why Can I spend my life how / do I ask you what you think Can I spend my life how / do I keep giving up loyalty for mystery / for what is between us / all around me are beings

Dear L,
There are textures that sit behind the world
/ that refuse our delusions.

My experience of the world / the motion of it has always been / the sudden color of this poem / the stone in my hands / a sharpness so soft it is carnage / The Boiling Forest / her Jewels stuck to the mountain I must speak it until I am her / The Woman Ironing,

I am her / or longing My body taught me poetry / it asked me about impact / in order to save me / vividly It is turbulent / immense There is nothing I can do with your comfort / the decoration of language the horror of abstraction / I have nothing to do with clarity / Instead of surviving what I do / is not hide / That’s what they mean when they call me / aggressive / I just walked outside in my black boots and asked her to marry me / the ***** soaked feathers / the secret / the poem seen and unseen again If I marry her / If I am her / I am not bound to her / but am part of her boundary / what courses through her reach I weep it I hold it / everything to do with what is breaking /

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A girl / a student / who heard the question M asked me / the answer I tried to say / A girl / a student who didn’t see / ? / what I was holding in my hand / the stone while I spoke A girl / a student / writes to me / She says, OBJECT TRANSFORMATION.

There is a soft green stone.
There is a stone made out of snow.
There is a stone orienting to the sharp sound / of pins.
There is a black stone with small bowls for air.
There is a stone coated in thread / made of wood.

There is a stone / her palm / a little rice cake.
There is a stone painted gold.

*

 Bhanu Kapil’s Blog, December 10^th, 2015 (quote / dandelions: Christina Peri Rossi’s State of Exile) + Audrey Patterson (a student of M’s at the Art Academy of Cincinnati)

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A girl / a student about to be 20 / writes to me and says,
in the dark / the record.

A girl / a student about to be 20 / writes to me and says,
I found color.

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 I am wordless here

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I COULD LEAVE THE PARTY WITHOUT EVER LETTING U KNOW

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Dear L,

This morning I rubbed vetiver / nutmeg / cinnamon / ginger / myrrh / into the stone of my palm / I smeared the smell of ***** / wet stone that comes from my root / and I felt how long it will take / it has taken to write this to you / to push for this space / that is still / only emerging / and so painfully

I’m sore and feel endlessly stupid / trying to word something like this / what happened when I was a teenage girl / about to be 20. A teenage girl / about to be 20 / who two years later moved to the mountains to save herself from trying to kill herself via refusing to eat via expelling / what icing what education she consumed / because she’d rather kill herself than listen to what was appropriate about a death / a wound / her mouth / a choice that was made for her / and what she did out of desperation to / end it / to disappear from it.

I remember my first evening facing the mountain / the sun against it / I sat on the dryer / counting the hidden honeyhives / smoked / and was sure I wouldn’t / make it / because / why would I?

The dark did record / it as that. A girl who understood that she felt she had to become nothing. Not out of vanity / but out of a search for expansion / words in The Boiling Forest / decimation. I don’t / glamorize / I don’t rank this death I felt dying its impact on my body / a color I found that turned to poetry I have feeling / which is also illness / that continues and was altered against mountains.

(sent to L)

I will never write poems that look like poems No, I won’t repeat language this way On the bus with N / the Woman Ironing / my husband my wife my boundary / I say, Writing today / Writing I feel I am nothing like / Alice why would I / be There is no music in me / just details / how I tried to warm them / A barrenness An encounter

Residual grief A body / resided in notes Notes / resided in find love where? I’m writing / a poem about a fucking rock, I say to N / It’s not the first time / a texture

the song brutal or delicate / He reminds me who buried hers in Iowa / Break the song / is what she says / though I remember it as / Break the song into the song / and have been thinking on that / “call me anytime because my pain goes wet,” says my playlist / The Blood Barn / the one with the violets in her lap / goes astray /

astray We end the year or a night listening / to music from an abandoned house / the dark does record / I make a GIF of S + S dancing blue and magenta / N standing on the couch brushing his fingers on the ceiling / My husband via Judge Ca$H the Woman Ironing / the one with the violets on her lap / goes astray / His breath turns /

His breath turns to mine when mine / gets a rash and it swells / my breath explodes / is sometimes a scar / expelling too much refusing too much / sliced or draped I feel sore today / my whole back and arms Gnarled Limbs from / heaving panic holding it out to U / while we watched a TV show called Rectify Each / pecan tree has its own skeleton I remember / calling J once in the middle of an anxiety attack and explaining that I was sure / I must have absorbed something I must have opened and caught / something

My body has its own skeleton or a drug / ? / that made me feel this way / so delirious / spinning / hovering above the ground while also being crushed by it / A little bit of ***** flaking or a stone / dying

What is a jewel, R asked me / Fucked up rocks gone floral, I answered We laughed in the little message box / the little message box My body and I / we are very close / My poems and I / we are very close / Language and I / we are not very close why would I / be

To listen to / or describe A difference in thinking / Who are we when we are not each other together / because there are no words / I call N and ask him to marry me or I tell him about the woman who stopped me / at work / to talk about how she keeps finding evidence / students who throw up in the bathroom / boys and girls /

I want to describe a difference in thinking / that I have no language for / We delicately train / for no language Our difference A mystery Our loyalty An ignorance / We have no language / just an arrogant / matter[19]

The folding ocean / A starving girl Scar tissue / woke up in the middle of the night because the ice cracked and it shook the lake and it shook the abandoned house / All around me are beings At a certain point the ice of one of them will have melted before the other

/ That person will receive / transmit a difference in thinking / ***** An offering / The first time N described the way he experienced thought / I felt terrified / Part of me wanted to leave / The Blood Barn A starving girl The folding ocean / I am her / I walk / beside her / How we collect it / the form one long blackened / one stone what courses through her reach / the body’s edge / is lit How it waits for us / I once wrote / How do you envision the poem beginning, L? / and now a more feral proposition: / to recognize each other in huge water / in *****.

I love you.

C

 

 

 

 

Additional Notes:
-Photos of Pluto from New Horizons, NASA’s mission to the Pluto system and Kuiper Belt.

-The Ace of Cups / is from the Emily Dickinson Tarot Deck, which is sold by Factory Hollow Press. The cups suit was designed by Haley Rene Thompson.

-“IT’S GONNA BITE YR FEELINGS OUT” and “I COULD LEAVE THE PARTY WITHOUT EVER LETTING YOU KNOW” are lyrics from Kiiara’s “Gold.”

-Bhanu Kapil’s blog can be found here: http://jackkerouacispunjabi.blogspot.com/

-Re-imaginations / versions of a question Kapil has been asking (Who are we when we are not with each other?) appear in this poem.

-Thank you Brandon Shimoda for sending me Evening Oracle (Letter Machine Editions) and for the postcard.

-Thank you Audrey Patterson / all the students at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

-We were both wrong / We listened to the recording. Alice Notley doesn’t say break the song. She actually says destroy the song.