Grief Lives in this Body
Excerpts From my First Zine-Book
I. Grief Lives in the Body II
Grief lives in the body and all the outside places
It occupies filling and expanding in an empty void
When the people you love have been rounded up
and you cannot escape to free them yourselves
When you wait for news with baited breath for lack of results not for lack of trying
For lack of understanding and
The inadvertent tears you cry from frustration
exhaustion
finally elation
when the process is over, returned
to passing ships
in the night
like coals over the trial fires.
II. Department of Sanitation
My body is a prison that keeps failing itself
Every time
It picks itself up by its bootstraps
Orange and white and tall and wide and short and narrow
Recycling bin littered with labels Sensitive information redacted contributing
To the landfill outside while the landfill inside
Continues to grow and swell and gurgle and
Burn and pinch and prick and squeeze
The air from my lungs as I am trying to sleep
and trying to dream of a day when the warden of my illness will release me and communicate this sentence
III. Sweat
Our planet is dying, I said and you agreed
Our planet is dying, you said and I agreed
Meshed entwined in black fabric on an
Endless journey to resolve the tension between us
By walking 6 miles uptown over hills and garbage
And past all the places where we were young and stupid and loved and alone
I am dying, you said and I agreed
I am dying, I said and you agreed
A mirrored reflection of our own self interests
Refracted against the altruistic nooks and secret hideouts
The rediscovery of things we thought we were so above
Where we are above I and I am below,
so below,
down the subway platforms
where we say goodbyes
a thousand times
IV. Grief Lives in the Body VI
Grief lives in the bed that I
threatened to burn covered in bite marks
and bruises and a thick winter blanket of
Guilt by my own admission I missed the affection
that had i known it would be the last
We could have stayed longer
I’m an avoider of serious feelings
feeling and wanting and longing and crying because
I will never enjoy anything as much again I let my guard down and let the ghouls in through the cracks in my willpower
Grief lives in the stolen glances and
curious questions that have led us into
The woods and out into a desert alone
and unloved and unencumbered by the
Weight of hindsight of bad decisions
made when you know it’ll be the last
The overwhelming need to destroy everything
I touch
You touch
An emotional bull
in a china shop
V. Untitled For You
No one is good at goodbyes
Particularly when it is for the very last time and
The subject is avoided over and over in lieu of
Drunken promises smothered in affection where
The air is being compressed out of my ribcage
and out of my lungs by the pressure you’ve put on me
Lungs that are scarred by cartons of Parliaments
in the dark through alleys
over bridges
under tressles
across busy streets
Kings and Queens
On a level playing field when all the
Cards have been flung to the floor in a moment
of passion no longer ignored by the crushing
Weight
Of wanting
Of desire
Of spontaneous combustion on a
fuse we thought endless
VI. For Kim Gordon Howling
A poem for I who was not
beautiful enough to
start a punk band keep a blog write a colllection
of essays about my feelings about the
exploitation of grief we experience being packed
nine million in thirty square miles north east south west across bridges and tunnels and islands and ismuth
Above hundredthousand years of schist quartz
feldspar marble gneiss
Below an 888 number for ambulance chasers
bearing those names in duplicate triplicate
A poem for I who was not stunning enough
to gain the attention of those I wanted and those
I longed for nor men but recognition of
opinions and facts built up from the ground of discrimination bigotry in the clean sterile suburbs
Where we watched burning buildings from hilltops and rooftops televisions classroom windows
Stewing and brewing with rage for
various reasons
When
I was right
They were wong
They were louder
I was scorned