Britney

January 19
“She wears three rings, one for each husband…she is conceived of as never able to attain her heart’s most fervent desire. For this reason she always leaves a service in tears…”

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There are many things I could use this page to say but I am not going to say them. There are many things I could use this mouth from my mother to say but my words only invite invasion or exile. I want to be left alone for a while. I want to stop having my growth pulled this way and that, my existence taken advantage of, my words taken for granted.

I think it is a pain that I either cannot peacefully rest in a crevice with myself without people interrupting, or my issues are trampled and veiled by dust when the townsfolk rush out of the woods with their cries of, “Witch! Witch! Do not look at her! Do not listen to the siren call of sorrow!” I draw the Hermit card and for once, I breathe a sigh of relief. My tarot pushes me to recluse. It is the only thing I welcome into my blood.

***

In certain pockets, there is no time. When I sleep, I am released into another world. It is neither good nor bad, but the time, or lack thereof, is never pressing on my mind. Today I passed out in my room, and when I woke up in myself I saw a gnarled tree that made me howl until I vibrated because I was so terrified. I thought that it was finally my closing scene. It was at the end of a suburban neighborhood arranged in rows, and every box television flashed the same images. The gray had settled like mist and everyone knew that I was only observing. They were interested in my screams. I don’t blame them. Their passerby eyes made me leave.

When I see those I recognize from the parallel in my dreams, there is always a defining dread that lets me know that they are not the same as the ones I know. The pump and grind that I call my mind has morphed them into fellow souls on trial, and yet, I am always the spotlight defendant. My ambivalence lets me avoid accusations of chasing martyrdom.

Am I a mediatrix of suffering? Is that what I must come to learn?

CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME CLASSIC ME.

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The final word: My thoughts could be better organized sometimes but the most painful thing in the world is to pour myself into a piece of writing, reveal my deepest frustrations and fears, and give it to someone and have them tell me that it doesn’t make sense. They don’t get it. What am I even saying? That is how you hurt me. I am giving you the key. Laugh at my foolishness. Marvel at it. Roll it into sweet dough and eat it with me as an offering to Erzulie Fréda, but only if you’ll be good and savor it for her.

I am my favorite animal sacrifice.

January 26, 2016
I woke up this morning and the very first thing my body told me to do was put on “Best Sunday Dress.” I can’t explain it. I sat, I listened, I cried. Afterwards, when the music was over, I sat some more, stunned. I couldn’t understand any part of it. I wasn’t even particularly sad. But it made sense.

I have the sensibilities of a wound walking but I’ve substituted the will, the fragility, the fearful exposure. My body fills out with each bite, my voice is linear—I wince at any fissures, but I persist. It is enough to live out weeks in a day. It is enough to see my words as fixtures. Every day I look at the hours to guide; post-Zoloft (almost a month clean!) I find peace in the solid advice of whatever force is unfurling the rope for me to hold.

The break room is mine; I wake up and draw, with Loveless or the Melvins in the background, and I am appalled by the simple motivation, the leap from last year to this. I have finally settled into my element, writing at every turn and trading outside for familial warmth and thinking. Tapping. Observing.

It feels good to live in my time—an understatement, but if we tried to fit every feeling into the limits of a sentence we would drive ourselves mad. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why so many writers are the way they are. I hate the cyclical nature of writing about writing but I want it to be known that it is my raft, my crowing morning cock, my well-built barn nestled in the back of Christina’s World. Eileen Myles said it best:

In some way, I want my writing to take care of me. I want to live in my world. I want to carry my world with me like a shell. I want a home. It’s always been like a dream, in the way that everyone says, ‘Ooh, I wish I was a writer, I really have stories.’ They just imagine you sitting in some place all the time having this incredible life. We have such messy lives, writers, and it’s so unstable, but I think we do it because we want to create a reality on some level […] You just evolve a style of being a writer that makes it possible to say the things you need to say in the way you need to say them. Suddenly you’ve managed to live in your time.

A mouthful! But it was a necessary share. Now you know where I’ve settled. I digest the ashes of every new poem but the taste gets better each time. ♦