for every heart aching
like an open door
for every god peering
through the window
for every journey ending
with the same hobbled crawl
home, with the voice
in the back of the head
like the mother, wailing.
for every animal confession
splitting the throat wide open—
I CLAWED MY WAY OUT OF THE WOMB
LIKE A MONSTER
I WANTED TO BE LOVED SO DESPERATELY
THAT MY FINGERS SHOOK WITH IT
I AM NOT BEAUTIFUL
BUT I COULD BE
I AM VOLATILE
VIOLATED
MY BODY WAS NOT
ALWAYS MY OWN
I ONLY LOOK INTO THE MIRROR
TO SEE THE WHITES OF MY EYES
we could make ourselves happy, we could learn
optimism, she would show us how, I held my face
very still and wore my most interested mask,
because she was a Guest Speaker
and I was sitting very close to the front of the room
and she had come a long way to speak to us
about Happiness and we were unable to pay her
with anything but lunch and a small gift and the gift
of our attention, which, she assured us, is a gift,
the giving of which makes both giver and receiver
happier. When the Guest Speaker told us
that unhappiness comes from a lack of perspective
to see another side to the story, that there is always
another side to the story and maybe
our greatest happiness will rise out of what we think
is loss, I placed my hands one over the other
on the notebook in my lap and tilted my head
in that way that says, I am thinking very hard
about what you are saying. I thought about the lotus flower
with its roots in the muck and I thought about all the ways
humans are not lotus flowers and I thought about the pill
I swallow every morning and how I wonder
if it makes any difference but which I am too scared to stop
swallowing because what if it is making a difference,
what if it is the cord tethering me to this world.
When the Guest Speaker told us that laughing
three minutes a day releases endorphins
and that a month’s worth of three minutes
can alleviate depression, I re-crossed my legs
and maintained eye contact with the Guest Speaker—
who was really a perfectly nice person and happy enough
for any two people and therefore immediately suspect
to me with my history of doctor’s visits and blister packs
of let’s-not-call-it-happiness, of sometimes-not-despair-
will-suffice—and wrote in my notebook: 1) laugh,
even if it’s fake, it still works. And when the Guest Speaker
told us to smile every day I did not roll my eyes
although I might have sighed loudly enough
for the Guest Speaker to hear but nevertheless
I wrote 2) smile. I looked at the Guest Speaker’s smile
and thought it was genuine and then I thought it was not
genuine and then I was troubled at the thought
of ungenuine happiness and wondered if genuine
unhappiness isn’t at least a more honest way
of moving through the world. And as if the Guest Speaker
had read my mind she said 3) move, get up and move,
it releases endorphins and you can dance
in your office when nobody is looking and your mood
will improve. And I want so badly some days
to be the kind of person who keeps a gratitude journal
and believes in manifestations, who believes
that if I throw myself on the mercy of the universe
the universe will be merciful, that happiness is as simple
as mirror work, which people tell me is not easy,
because who can look in the mirror for three minutes
and say I love you, I love you, I love you
without bursting into tears over all the ways
we have not loved ourselves—but the Guest Speaker
I am laughing in my mirror, I am telling myself
the story of happiness. I do not know how it begins.
told us that this is possible and today I am tired,
so tired, so why not, I think, why not, so today
For Ada Limon
Look, it’s not that I believe in him. Nor he
in me. We have moved beyond all that.
I just like having someone there in the dark.
Usually we sit in silence, waiting for passing
headlights to glide across the ceiling and knock
stray prayers loose from where they got
stuck on their way out, so many years ago.
It’s almost like finding old piñata candy,
says God, picking one from the floorboards.
He unwraps it, takes a quick taste. Winces.
Nods like he’s just remembered something
for the thousandth, thousandth time.
What is it? I ask. It’s kind of like chewing
tinfoil, he says. All that aching naked hope.
I want to be a passenger
in your car again
and shut my eyes
while you sit at the wheel,
awake and assured
in your own private world,
seeing all the lines
on the road ahead,
down a long stretch
of empty highway
without any other
faces in sight.
I want to be a passenger
in your car again
and put my life back
in your hands.
"Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn."
