james
i can’t
articulate
comprehensively
what i want to do
to him
so i will tell you
what he did
to her
it’s like everything
seems so much easier for
everyone but you
complications are
no consequence of mistake
so don’t long for less
you’ll find that what is
easy to fix is even
easier to break
retinitis pigmentosa.
they diagnosed it when I was too young to understand why
she was crying. and I grew up knowing it was there, but
didn’t realize how bad it was until we were
at the liberty science center in the imax theater
the screen read, “SEA MONSTERS”
“mom, what all can you see when you look straight?”
“M-O-N.”
and with that I began crying silently and uncontrollably, wondering how
she could stay so positive when it worsens with each year, how
she could sit through the surgeries and medicines, knowing
this disease has no cure, and someday, she will be blind
“but that won’t be for a long time.”
she tells me I was fortunate to have been born female because
it’s a recessive gene and I might have inherited it if I were male
I don’t know anything about genetics and I
probably know less about myself but
maybe I’ve inversely received the disease. see
I always seem to know what’s going on around me, but
I haven’t the slightest idea of where I’m going
the expanding periphery keeps blurring my line of sight
and my eyes just don’t know where to look
but hers have no choice. all she can do is look forward and
move along that path unfazed like
the fate of her destination doesn’t lie
outside of that straight line
and in a sense she feels blessed because
the coping process taught her that
she doesn’t really even need those two to see
yet while I rely on mine blind shamelessly
she still sees everything
when she looks to where I stand, she knows the sights
in every depth and tense — better than its viewer
could ever hope to view it
and with closed eyes, she opens mine
unravelling my line of sight. she
sheds a light on me
but I’m too distant to let her see I
need and could’ve never breathed without it
because when I’m beaten down blind by doubt
she still sees everything her child could be
there is a feeling it’d be easier
moving me so fast, leaving
trails I can’t discern
to learn to slow down if I
wasn’t slow to learn
damage control, what an impossible term
it argues sense among a senseless distress
but man’s messes dismiss notions of limits
and sends the world into a catastrophic whirl where
repercussions echo beyond their range and shake the senses
making you long for comatose
aftermath adding, multiplying, exponentially increasing
making you wish you were innumerate
it doesn’t even have to be your chaos
I know, I was by a beach
once before and twice after its bombing
before, I didn’t think much of it, with its standard
barrels of bananas and crates of coconuts, but
after, first seeing the debris and complete brokenness
it felt like I had lost something substantial, but I hadn’t
I hadn’t lost a jigsaw, much less a keystone
I hadn’t lost what had been taken away from its people
I only lost what I had taken for granted
which even so, to me, was not all too much
and then, upon returning some months later
to find much of the ruins unchanged
I thought about damage —
internal; never understood and never fully survived —
and control —
external; never appropriated, never enough to revive —
and I wondered how I could hate myself for having
absolutely no place or identity within their chaos
aside from that of a bystander in photograph captions
secondhand trauma, underscored and
unaccounted for, therefore, more or less accountless
my kind is infinite, but the variations blur
since we’re all not technically connected
but what no one knows is that
no one is ever disconnected from the wreckage
no one is free and no one is safe
they mourn the pieces of the puzzle because
they live with such a fragmented sanity
and everyone seeks out a bomb shelter because
everyone is, uncontrollably, damaged
I’ll never know why you called
but I’d rather have it that way
and not have to feel all these
old veins resurfacing on this
skin of mine. oh how I wish
you would fade away, back
into the past, wherein you
belong and were destined
to remain for my eternity
as a human. please just
disappear for now, but
love me all this while,
for I don’t know love
for my own self or
skin. if you want
this please just
let me know
I’ll be here.
perhaps,
maybe,
never,
not.
this world has been nice
too nice, almost
I’m trying to be happy, but it’s hard
it’s hard to forget everything about who I was
and turn into a new self
I feel like I’m cheating myself
out of the years that hardened me
into someone who sees through everything false
and trusts no one
but now I’m vulnerable all over again
and it’s too late
they see me as someone good
and I guess that’s nice, to be known and liked
but am I forgetting? I hate everyone
I always have hated so dearly
and have known no love for myself
how is it that they know?
they know nothing about me
they don’t see this darkness
they all smile and enjoy around them
I gave in to the hideous hedonism I hate two nights ago
and gave myself away to strangers
I got fucked up and acted stupid
and now I’m a resident clown, more or less
they don’t see the fucking mess inside of me
and for that I am thankful
because in all honesty
who fucking wants to see that?
I don’t.
