The days slip through my fingers without sensation
With hours of paid programming in the forefront of my mind.
Illusions seem more real: comedies, sitcoms, midevening drama on a screen:
Vibrant realities joking in technicolor.
I want to move in to the big house with plastic food and a tall picture perfect husband to fuck
when I come home from my six-digit salary job.
My life will have a coherent plot,
And every night a happy ending.
sitting in the cold empty apartment you broke into to have
sex with me. I’m watching you sleep, wrapped up in the sleeping
bag I brought to keep us warm,
grasping it as though it were your only protection,
your only comfort.
I am afraid to wake you.
you might not recognize me, remember who I am
though you’ve known me (slept with me) for months.
you say you love me.
I don’t know what this means.
you might hurt me if I wake you.
cold is better than pain.
1992
Surrounded by the chaos of my possessions,
Smoke-stained walls plastered with faded photographs;
On the floor stacks of books.
Over the years my room has changed locations, holding me in like thoughts in conversations.
I am here, still;
A nearly empty bottle of Wild Irish Rose in my hand, cigarette burned down to the filter.
I am the unwanted gift left behind by men who couldn’t find enough room for the refuse of their lives.
Men who left me alone to drink, wanting a woman who couldn’t or wouldn’t think to match their own lack of substance.
I am an outdated model of a mastered game; trapped inside my own body.
There are dark circles under my eyes from too many wasted nights.
I am ignorant of abuse;
A happy and willing slave to the next man to notice my stone-blue eyes, the curve of my hip, the movement of my lips as I slowly inhale smoke from my cigarette.
Once,
I imagined I was beautiful, a man unwrapped me;
My body, not my mind.
I woke up to an empty bottle and a man I couldn’t remember next to me forcing his hand down my pants as my head spun.
I lie here pretending I don’t feel the pain,
Drinking, popping pills, eating chocolate.
I am a living, breathing stereotype, barely able to stand as I pull a pair of jeans over my widening hips, hold in my stomach as I zip myself into costume,
A little eyeliner, face powder, lipstick to complete the task
And I hardly recognize myself underneath this mask
Or remember who I was to begin with.
1993
i feel depressed confused LOST in between words in between images spinning not stopping faster and faster falling swinging between extremes unbalanced sick wordless caught trapped at the point that isn’t no shape no outline my body has no form
THERE ARE NO PICTURES THE SIZE OF MY STOMACH
my thighs i don’t see i don’t know what I look like I see a STRANGER look back at me in photographs in the mirror and i am always EXTREME
fat or thin good bad judgments rein me in tie me
it’s overwhelming the importance of the imaginary body i keep in reserve for myself
no worth NOT FITTING the image has distinct BOUNDARIES where my stomach my mind my thoughts my words should end except that I DON’T END
anywhere but stretch out across and through space my stomach fills the mirror i feel like an enormous expanse of flesh i’m not fat i don’t end
i am FORMLESS
faceless even though I know some people can see the outline of my body my words thoughts with ends but I can never bring those boundaries in to
HOLD ME
in place so I stay out of balance AFRAID OF THE HAZY SPACE IN BETWEEN
the picture of me I want is defined one-sided at one end away from center and NEVER small enough
that is the ideal me the one that i hold onto but can never slow down enough to touch always spinning around and farther away seeing myself in the mirror at the OTHER side
LARGE NOISY INTRUSIVE
seeing through to the fantasy of being so small so defined held in place I UNRAVEL
wrap my words around myself
Again and again I return to the same space,
The same words eating me up from the inside,
The same lack of self.
I forget who I am.
I forget to believe in myself.
I forget what it means to be alive after all of this.
I forget who I am past the size of my thighs,
As though my thighs could sum up my existence and identity.
As though the shape of my body could fill my life with meaning.
And I feel so insecure, so unsure of who I am or who I am becoming.
I feel lost and out of place as I have for so many years,
And yet so close;
Everyday a little closer to who I may become.
I’m scared that I’m not living up to the person I always imagined I’d become,
As though there were some sort of rush,
As though anything could ever be enough.
And it’s everything my dad taught me to be.
Nothing renders me naked the way
A simple touch
Or smile so subtle in its place
Slides in.
Slow movement misplaces monologues,
Disrobing my identity –
I stand bare
Skimming the boundaries of language.
No semiotic armor bracing me.
No words to wrap in their loving embrace.
Yesterday a line would suffice.
The burning sting flashed through my body
Leaving me empty
And the pain didn’t matter so much.
A line, another line
Not enough.
Chain smoking,
Fucking.
Coming down I’d cloak myself in shame
And wait
For the next chopped sickly exit.
sometimes i lose track of myself between the images,
the pages of magazines,
the flickering rectangles of film,
the point where sounds blend together.
i try to squeeze my way through this space
without leaving myself behind.
i don’t want to be moulded after another.
but i am
caught in the dichotomy between self and other
without a boundary that i can touch.
i can’t even hold myself together without
words and culture to wrap around me.
colorfully, fashionably hidden
like a chameleon.
1998
Careful, do not open.
Contents under pressure.
I might explode.
There is only one exit,
Through the door to the right.
You should not enter,
Not my mind.
Don’t forget to lock the door behind you.
Leave me when my eyes are open.
That way I can be prepared.
And don’t throw out of any window for I am fragile; I may break.