In search of a poem that I had mostly memorized in 1990 but was a little hazy on, lo! these many (23? sheesh) years later, I went digging through a box of paper that will either fascinate or terrify whoever goes through my stuff after I die. Here are poems I liked, torn out of the New Yorker in this case, or often photocopied or even copied by hand from books. Notes I took during poetry readings when I used to go, and even some fliers I made for readings of my own. The best reading I ever did was with Scott Soriano, who put a steak on his face and squirted blood out of it while reciting a poem that was a revision of Howl, but about Carls Jr., this was 1989 I guess. Most performance art seems kind of a disappointment to me after that.
What else was in that box, Anne? Oh, children, gather round and see. Here are poems that a friend wrote, and songs. I haven't talked to him since he left Prague, that was 1995 I guess, but I can still sing one of the songs and every year I tell the joke I first heard from him, that Jan Hus was a man with a lot at stake. Also poems by my former insane roommate, no longer my roommate and probably even no longer insane. Poems by people I took classes with. No letters, because those are in another box around here somewhere.
So many things by other people. I can't bear to toss it (and anyway it's just this one box) because even though the smell of the mimeograph machine has faded from them, my memory of exactly how I felt the first time I read some of these poems stays fresh, and I am transported back to sixteen, or twenty-six.
And things I wrote as well. Mostly poetry. Oh, so young and earnest! My love was a tree, you guys, and also a glass of water. Already with the metaphors, and THAT earnest. And also one letter I wrote that I made a copy of for myself, stored separately from the other letters. It is three pages long, and tearstained, and so absolutely naked with pain that I want to get that girl a blanket and cover her. It has the range of a great battle, from the personal to the general, from Greek mythology to Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics, except it is clear that I was mostly fighting with myself, as the object of my affection had long since left me. I sat there this afternoon, with these pages in my hands, thinking: should I throw this out? Because this does not really go with how I see myself now, and it is so painful to remember this that it is almost embarrassing. Back when I used to find it easier to tell the whole truth than to hold it in, even if it sliced me open on the way out.
I mean: now, I want to finish something, and I know I can just just sit very still until you go. It's to the point where sometimes I hear the words before you say them, and I smile and say lightly that it was my fault anyway, sorry, and my teeth clamp over my tongue before I can say another word, and I wave goodbye and I don't look back until I know you're not looking. No more tearstained outpourings from this corner, no more bleeding the truth. So now I remember why I keep the letter, and fold it back into the box, as gently as I wish someone had been with me, put a lid on it, put it back in a quiet safe place.
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