a hasty explanation
after Sarah Kay
the reward for living through every failed attempt
is stuttered breath, a stuttering chest, body growing
in the absence of death. i hate to lie, but i lie all the time.
my tongue is thick and useless but i use it so well.
i hardly know anything but i’m learning every day. i dig
myself into holes i can’t get out of; end up digging deeper.
at the center i’m sure there’s a prize waiting,
even if it’s just a tootsie pop. the real prize
would be you, reaching down to pull me out
but the end of that story is never told, have you
noticed? i asked for a promise and you gave it.
only somewhat unwillingly.
four years in and i’ve only just realized
you like me best when i’m least like me.
that’s fine. i don’t like me much either.
better when i’m anyone else.
i can make myself so big you have to look up
even as you’re looking down.
or did you forget? one of two people
who can really hurt;
you didn’t have to say who the other was.
maybe i knew or maybe
it’s my self-absorption, self-obsession, selfish brain
claiming everything for me. don’t worry. everything for me is really
for you, we know how this works by now. i’m dying
to hold your tongue between my fingers,
see how well you can talk
with your spit pooling in the palm of my hand.
something about shame excites me—
yours more than mine, but mine all the same.
that pool of guilt sloshing in my belly. that desperate drive
to be anyone better. if it’s all the same to you, i’ll go now.
hide between the blinds where even the sun can’t find me.
shine a light on my excitement,
trace the roots down to their core.
everything comes from somewhere.
i came from home. that little lie slipping through so early on,
a desperate attempt to keep me safe from the only one
who’d never hurt me. how was i supposed to know?
and now here we are, balanced on the head of a spinning top
round and round, we all fall down. we pop back up, good as new.
i was never good at dominoes, but i sure love chickenfoot.
less balance, more sense. i was better at hiding my tiles than lining.
knock one down, only one more falls.
all that effort wasted
the trail remaining upright and spent.
let’s switch to a new game,
i’m tired of failing.
if you can’t pull my truth from its place in my throat
maybe i can hook a lure, see what i catch in you.
your truth is better than mine anyway.
you’ve said it yourself, you would choose to live
exactly the life you were given at the start.
would you make all the same moves?
place all the safe bets?
maybe you’d be like me, fuck around
and find out. bet against the house, risk
comfort for the sake of happiness. lose it all
and wake up standing. just kidding, you
wouldn’t. get off the mat, the bell isn’t ringing.
you’d choose your little paper house strung up with string,
white picket fence and that same silver ring.
oh, i know. i know, i know, i know, you tried.
we’ll soothe all those wounds, wet with salve.
we’ll miss the mark and make a new one.
stick the dart in the wall and try again.
broken home begets broken home begets.
we’re all growing sick of this cyclical nonsense.
magnetic pull at the base of the track.
what if we flipped it so all we are
is repelled? backwards circle still a circle.
centering my universe around anyone
but me. keep finding my way back
to the center of gravity. the whole world
rushing around my ears.
the weight of it all dragging me down
falling down to the bottom of the hole
dirt under my nails as i climb back up.
BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a writer creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan. they have been published in FOLIO, Roanoke Review, Figure 1, and The Offing, among others. they are a poetry reader for Capsule Stories. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co and their workshops can be found at poetryasplay.carrd.co.
