The other day I was told I have the personality of a divorced aunt. I found it difficult to imagine what gave this person that perception of me as I reheated my Trader Joe’s gyoza (the chicken type) and listened to When You Believe by both Whitney Houston AND Mariah Carey. Part of me has always felt like a divorcee—like I’ve had this big secret personal tragedy that no one talks about, but on the right night, and if I am given enough Sauv Blanc, I let some of it slip. As you can imagine, this made me very popular in school. The little boy who was always grieving his lost love.
Anyways, that is the emotional context in which this poem was written.
it’s not easy being an open sore in every room
turning a party into an operating theater,
you’ve made all your friends into surgeons—
the cadaver with a wound for a face.
your fragility is a landslide,
and no one wants to be near a man on the verge of rain
what would it take to cause you to fall now?
hardly a push, hardly worth the effort.
that way you bleed out,
couldn’t you just drown the whole sea,
and when was the last time your shores ran clear?
look how much space you take up when you’re sick.
Other times, you keep your arm outstretched
pushing away, while encouraging others to press a finger
into your bullet-sized hole
your private gorey red mound of flesh.
That’s to say nothing of the ways in which
your wound is a weapon
a festering pile of septic others can’t bear to withstand.
turning green, they vomit chunks of their cranberry JELLO
in a pile on the rug.
at least they brought something to this party.
Your gash is a cavern
two craggy cliffsides in some nowhere fucking town
that light can’t escape
so it married the first girl dumb enough to stay.
your bruise watercolors beautifully,
and now suddenly it’s art,
finally a pain with some value.
Seems hardly worth it at the market along with the prime rib
One day you’ll become a scab
and when you’re wine is drunk dry
you’ll fall off into a pocket
leaving behind a scar the shape of Arizona.
but there are times when in the right light, almost just for a second
your broken looks quite familiar—maybe friendly.
like the face you’re always searching for
like a pack of convenience store cigarettes and Hostess snowballs.