"What's it going to be then, eh?"
I feel bad that I’ve been referring to Daniel as “the boy” because it makes him such a dissonant figure in my speech. And maybe it’s because my life so far has been of a romantic lesbian and maybe someone that is male is almost alien to me. This whole experience is alien to me. But Daniel is very much a person. He is not “a boy”. So I need to stop calling him that. Even though I’m starting to make it sort of cutesy.
His name is Daniel. I call him Dan. And he is the most hoodrat thing in the universe.
It’s funny.
The departments of Art as Applied to Medicine and the History of Medicine are both a part of JHMI and are both treated as the runts of the school.
They are pretty much the Art History departments of medicine.
Poor humanities. People need to understand that there is no “better” or “smarter” or “beauty”, even, if not because we say it is so and then treat it thusly.
(Did I just say “thusly”?)
I tell myself
“I can live with pain”
Everyday, I seamlessly slink from
one to the next.
And I complain.
When I sleep,
my jaws clench strong
and true
and when I wake
they pop and crackle from
physiological misplacement.
The dentist offered to
take molds of my mouth,
to fashion a guard against the pressure
but I denied.
My jaw locks from time to time.
“I can live with pain”
My female anatomy dictates a monthly
surge of hormones and destruction
that keels me over with aches
from my ankles to my belly button,
twisting my lower back so tight
I’d rather not move.
My mother suggests I start taking
birth control pills
to subdue the cramping
but I don’t really need them that badly.
It’s only every month.
“I can live with pain”
I’ve become accustomed to the bruises
trailing on my skin,
the ways they climb up my right bicep
and hug my thighs with their
murky, swampy green and yellow stain.
But the definitive thud of the weapon’s tip
into the bone of your shin
never gets easy,
nor do the slashes on your exposed legs
refrain from stingy from the sweat.
It is too damn hot anyway,
so I am to blame.
When I die, I want my tibia hung above the mantle
and I want to baffle the doctors
who look at the depressions in the bone
and ponder and draw no significant conclusion.
I could live with that thought.
“I can live with pain”
Is there any reason I shouldn’t fear intimacy?
I admittedly fear falling prey to love
and the ways in which love leaves me.
I senselessly fear that I am inherently manufactured
to make my girlfriends fall in love with someone else.
Maybe I did really bore them.
And maybe I can’t forget it
if I want to remember
to stay interesting.
Just long enough.
Just one more day.
Just maybe,
I can live with pain.
I’m always surprised by how quickly flowers die.
But think about it; how long go you think you’d survive if your body was chopped off of your head?
Toy
The thought has crossed my mind;
when you break up, how do you decide who keeps the strap-on?
This is under the assumption it is bought mutually,
that it contains mutual history,
and that mutually neither wants to claim it.
Two ex-lovers, forever joined by
a penis on a leash.
I am glad,
reflecting on it,
that we never bought one.
Because I do not know the struggle
of deciding the home of a plastic penis.
But despite its absence,
I can’t help but wonder
what would have happened?
And I know that I’d want you to have it
because I know I won’t need it.
And I’d graciously
Oh
So
Gracious
(As gracious as the salt in the sea
to the razor burns of prickled shins)
present it to you,
as you will.
As you will.
The Inflicting
I remember when I
kissed your scars,
on the window-sill.
Thinking back I wonder;
did you cringe?
Were lips a useless remedy
or was I simply ignorant?
I always enjoyed when
she kissed my bruises better;
the fencer’s topography is
riddled with remnants of
mistakes.
The faults of my sword failing
to stop theirs
from bursting the capillaries
or drawing up their blood.
The scissor’s edge is no mistake.
The blood drips
and we watch in
awe.
It is beautiful. You
understand.
The Art of the viscous
source of vitality
is compelling.
There is no pain
without it in our veins.
No touch awarded without
the circuitry of the wire.
Maybe now we’re fencing dry.
Furta Sacra
Ste. Foy was much more loved in Conques,
if you measure happiness in miracles/
if you measure miracles in love received.
If you can believe that the golden
jem-laden shell with the pagan head
pleased the bones of the virgin saint,
so-much-so to grow eyes
in the empty sockets of the blind,
then so be it.
Did the monk Arinisdus feel no guilt
when he stole Ste. Foy from the crypt?
Or was it the fault of Agen for trusting
a thief, for “setting a stranger in authority over themselves”?
Can you blame God for allowing it,
or wanting it,
planning, or plotting it
as the clergy of Conques had?
Noble theft is right by the means,
by the desires of the taken,
but not the ungrateful that suffer the loss.
What did Ste. Foy have to say?
“I am quite tired and miss my grave”.
My spring break thus far has essentially been:
- going to the gym with my mom
- doing chores with my mom
- eating
- lying in bed
- killing a bag of croutons
- 1 museum trip
- staying in the shower for extended periods of time
- more eating
- my lying around
- internet. internet. and internet.
But really, I love hanging with my mom. She is super cool. She made me do zumba today which was awkward but fun and she can yoga better than me plus much more.
But then again, I want the beach. I miss the beach so much. I’m so jealous of people that get the typical “spring break” solely because they are at the beach. I don’t need parties or alcohol or any of that. Give me a vacant slice of any coast, a bathing suit, and surfboard, and a cooler with some ripe nectarines and I would be ecstatic.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
NCAA Regionals are this weekend.
I don’t really have much to lose; I’m from a division 3 team in Maryland. If I make it to the third round, I would be really happy. I just want a sense that I improved.
Girls from much more competitive teams (like Princeton, Duke, and Penn State) are really going to be on the spot.
So I’ll just make their day a little harder.
