by Lydia WeinbergerIn this reality I do not remember you, I only ever dated one person, Never got lost in the back of a tall boy's mustang, There was no first semester of college, No semesters after, I did not see you watching me My friend did not flick you off when she saw you staring I have not deleted your number and dozens of emails and I do not save screenshots sent to me by friends, Of you asking me where I live. I do not remember crying everyday, Or shaking while I wait to see you in the patterns, So much more fire than smoke; I did not read your admission of guilt, I did not fear you, Did not avoid buses for fear of being trapped with you, I do not remember the Women's Center, Or being on the phone with the Title IX office, the no contact order, And neither do you when you keep following me. Didn't see you pacing outside of my class. I don't remember because it's so much better to forget, So much easier, Sometimes life takes on a dreamlike quality when I think about you; As though you are just another boogeyman in my countless nightmares, Did I ever tell you I only have nightmares, And now you are in almost all of them. When I'm depressed I lose my ability to track time, and sometimes I think what I went through was a figment of my depression, Or maybe I was just a figment of your mental illness Another thing to obsess over and build paranoia around, Maybe that's why I can't remember, Because the trauma doesn't exist without you. The other day, I fell asleep on a bench and when I woke up you were there, And was I having a nightmare or were you dreaming, Why am I already struggling to remember; I do not call it a violation of my no contact order, rather a violation of the reality my mind has chosen, in which you and all the mistakes that led to you do not exist. I do not remember you Or you never believed I existed, And isn't it all awful, regardless?
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by Lydia WeinbergerContent warning: mentions of suicide I think being suicidal has made me more pro choice, In that I have actively chosen my own life everyday, Know that there is sweet relief out there but that that is not my choice So I treat myself with the tenderness of a mother to an unwanted fetus that persisted till personhood. I know now that there is no death, Just something, then nothing, Because a suicidal person can still fear death; We are seduced by the promise of a deep slumber, And what is an aborted fetus than nothing to nothing? Mass of cells at peace not because of death but because they were never more than mass of cells, Death is not an active phase to only be experienced by the living. And who are the living? Is it my beating heart that ties me to that group? My ability to sense pain? Is that my personhood keeping the blade from my wrist or Is it the sweet smell of spring flowers Clinging to my mucus membrane, The warm embrace of my boyfriend's shirt And the buzz of coffee too late at night, Or the image of my parents mourning me? Is that what keeps me here? Am I kept here just by passiveness? Is it still a passive choice to keep existing if I think about dying everyday? Is it still a passive choice to stay pregnant? To not get an abortion? Do we actively or passively ascribe emotions to stuffed animals? To things humans made and humans can destroy and their atoms would be none the wiser? by Lydia WeinbergerI have been here for hours, crouching Against dry stones and parched grass blades Watching, while lions then vultures tear into a gazelle’s plush, As the sun begins to make rivers of yellow fat. I cherish her death like a daily allowance From G-d, to capture as black plastic snaps across glass. Heading stateside I press my pounding head against the window glass And find myself against the rancid toilet crouching As panic wracks my body, my allowance Of medicine balanced on knife blades, Allowing me to get on the plane, but not keeping the spittle from trailing down the fat Of my lip. My mind wanders (spitefully) to dealing excess Xanax, my wallet becoming plush. I go back to my psychiatrist and sit on the edge of the seat, the cushion too plush, And I feel my fingertips burn, her Eastern European roots dictating she serve hot tea in a glass. I tell her that she, in my absence, has grown fat. She tells me I have grown predictable, and further scorn can be seen, crouching On the wings of her eyebrows, matching contemptuous blades; She does not strike back, though. Mental health professionals give my abuses greater allowance. On my next trip abroad there is still no more Xanax for my anxiety allowance, So instead I find off-brand ambien and feel my eyelids close, velveteen and plush. Barely roused by disembarking from my plane and the roar of helicopter blades, My eyes taking on the appearance of frosted glass, And I dream of my psychiatrist nude and crouching, Feasting on steak, crunching down the bones and swallowing chunks of gristle and fat. I wonder at the Shepherd’s priorities that the yaks grew so fat Under their own dreadlocks. Making no allowance For rest or eating, my pointer finger crouching Above my camera’s trigger, its once plush Pad growing rougher and rougher as the shutter pulls again and again across glass. I stroke this callous as my nerves stretch across a blade’s edge. The airplane intercom and crying adults jam blades Into my ears as storm-cloud ice forms like fat Sugar cubes on the thick panes of glass. I have already met my allowance Of hating G-d for today, so instead I hate the plush Ass of the woman three rows ahead of me as she hits the floor, fearfully crouching. The metal of the plane curves in like fat paunch, giving allowance To the mountain (or is it just ground?) ahead, its blades of rock cutting into plush Engines and wings. And my mind like glass breaks; I find myself back in the Grasslands waiting, crouching. |
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