written at close of 2022, still more-or-less accurate from year-later’s eyes

I finally discovered over-the-counter

sleeping pills. Feminist porn. A good-enough

diagnosis. Escitalopram. Etel Adnan.

Sending nudes. Taking space. Voice notes.

 

Confessed my love to someone. Got

rejected, sort of. Kept talking. Talked

so much. Talked to god, like, Are you

there? Thought about language.

 

Thought too much. Gave up on ever knowing

what "too much" means. Couldn't stop

writing poems. Took up running. Watched

the seasons do their overdone beautiful

 

thing. Line breaks. Stanzas. Repetition.

Kept saying I love you to everyone

who would listen. Kept listening. Thought

maybe it's time to learn how

 

to be quiet. Fell in love with silence

all over again. In love with scare quotes.

Quotation. The difference between self and world

and how it's not a difference. Fucked

 

with tense shifts. Fucked with the past.

Believed in the future. Danced alone,

with others, in bedrooms and nightclubs,

with the contemporary. Fucked with

 

the lyric. Kept saying I. Kept trying

to tell you something so unbearably true,

even when I wasn't sure whether you wanted

to know it. Tried to learn new ways to ask.

 

Fucked it up. Kept trying. Fell back in love

with litany. With my own I; her crazy

unreliability. With all I’s  chaos. With chaos

theory. With feeling normal, a good-enough version

 

of normal. Didn't read Winnicott. Didn't read

Freud. Gave up on being comprehensive.

Gave up on trying to be anyone other

than exactly whoever I found myself being.

 

Made some new friends. Lost some. Missed

them. Missed moss. Missed the hills I used

to look out at on my daily walks. Knew I'd see them

again, one day. Felt like that was enough.

 

Knew I'd see you again, someday, too.

Which is something like "enough," something

I need a new language for, a new illusion,

a new use. Fucked with the present.

 

Breathed in new errors. Felt human.

Forgave myself for it. Felt good-enough

to finally say I love you and know

whatever happened, next, would be—

 

would have to—something I could live with.

Lived into various clichés. Let my body

(my stupid, splendid, various, human,

vulnerable, surprisingly-strong body)

 

love things. Gave up on trying to stop it.

Realized I couldn't, not really, never had

been able to, not even a little bit, not even

at all. Loved you. Kept loving you and loving

 

you and loving you, even if—when—(yes, I

know) I was really only doing that alone.