For Clarification

This was recently published by the fine folks at the New Yinzer at www.newyinzer.com


For Clarification

“…except my life, except my life, except my life”
Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

I think what I was trying to say last night
is this
the way the liquor and the water
never really mix, the way you can see it floating
like little amoebas or thin little strings
of DNA
between the ice cubes,
that is sort of how I am feeling.

Like the things I am tethered to,
or was once tethered to,
are floating away,
and I without them.
I’ve been spending so much time trying
not to get bogged down
mired to
the mundane, that I have lost my place in time.

And when I cannot feel the keys below my fingers,
or the chair on which I sit
at this desk
in this little room
carved especially for me,
what am I but the black slashes before me?
The tattoos on my arms?
the red red stain of my uncontrollable hair?
the fear, the ghosts, the representation of what was once real?
These symbols of a woman,
living.

There are only men in my life,
men who make art
men who write
men who drink
men who watch television.
Men who write songs about my death.
Men who photograph themselves in strange tiled bathrooms
and draw tears on that photo
and I find it shoved in my mailbox.
Men who send men pornography
just have to someone else understand their needs.
Men too weak to get off chairs.
Men too strong to sit down.

And I feel them around me all the time.
They exist, untouchable.