#pov second person

skyping a friend late on Saturday
and you shouldn’t be tired, but you are
you are so very tired

tired of work, the world,
of washing the damn dishes–

why not just use paper plates?
your friend suggests

–tired of sensible suggestions
and pat answers to your problems

you need to get more sleep,
your friend says

and she’s not wrong, but it still stings,
because you’re trying, damnit,
you’ve been trying for what feels like weeks
and still you can’t sleep

your sheets are sticky, damp with sweat
and the air itself is itchy
thoughts prickly as thorns
and as inescapable as cartoon quicksand

you think about work and the
deadline you know you can’t make and
the way your boss will sound
when he sighs in frustration and

you think about your mother and
how you technically didn’t officially
make plans to go help her
clear out the attic of the old house
but there was a certain implication there and

you think about the dream you had
the last time you slept, how
you were in the grocery store
and not wearing a mask, how
you woke up gasping and

you think about the dirty dishes
piling up in the sink yet again
because why were we born anyway?
to suffer? everyday we get up
and have to do dishes and

you think about your father’s voice
as he said good night
good night to you, good night
to the moon, good night
to the great green room and

on and
  on and
     on and

you’re writing a poem again, aren’t you,
your friend says

and there’s laughter in their voice
but frustration too, they’ve
watched this play out too many times
and even autistics eventually get sick

of doing the same damn thing
over and over again

of expecting different results
and being disappointed every time

time for bed?
your friend asks

in a minute,
you say.

just let me finish this poem.

waking in the dark pre-dawn
shivering your way out of bed
and into the not quite heated kitchen
yawning and staring sightlessly,
bleary-eyed and exhausted,
as you wait for the water to boil.

the ghost of a whistle wakes you
and you lurch forward
cutting the heat and the sound.
with great concentration,
you measure out the grounds,
pour the kettle’s hot water
over the soft darkness.

you put the kettle back,
replace the coffee press lid,
and wait.

the coffee press only makes a single cup.
you get two mugs down anyway,
pull out the sweetener and cream.
by now it is brewed.

slowly, you press down the plunger,
separating the wet mess of grounds
from the amber liquid.

you pour the first cup.
add just enough cream to cut the acrid acidity—
by now, you can identify this by color.
one packet of splenda. stir.

you pick up the hot mug carefully,
cradling it between two too-cold hands,
as gentle and safe embrace,
and return to the bedroom.

she is barely awake when you put the mug down,
but the warm scent of coffee
causes her to stir, although her face scrunches
and she makes some wordless sounds
of indignant protest.
who invented this whole morning thing, anyway?

finally she sits up, still swaddled in blankets,
and reaches out one chilled hand
to take the offered beverage.
a sip, and then she’s reaching out to you,
grabby hands entreating,
pulling you down to her level
and dropping a grateful kiss
on the corner of your mouth.

best husband ever, she says,
almost smug in the certainty of it,
a declaration of clearly obvious fact.
you give her a brief kiss back
then sigh, stretch, make another awful yawn.

smiling, you retreat again to the kitchen.
you refill the kettle and set it to heat.

in and out, the needle weaves
and the thread pulls taut.
in and out, as easy as breathing,
as difficult as silence—

cloth blooms from your fingertips
glossy and smooth as your brothers’ wings
as rough as the rasp of beak
green as nettles, dark as blood.

the work takes all your concentration
you ignore the the shouted jeers,
the clatter and rattle beneath you
old wheels hauling you onward,
toward the pyre—

you are unafraid of burning.

you already live in a world of fire,
a world of your own making,
and you are too stubborn
to let it consume you now.

there is one sleeve left.
your fingertips are raw and red
a constant fiery stinging
made all the worse by salt

but you bear the burn willingly,
each tear as furious and ferocious
as the raw wordless screams
locked silent inside your chest

echoing and reverberating
and cutting yourself to pieces
even as you bend your head
over your painful piecework.

half a sleeve left, and abruptly you
are out of time. the cart shudders
to a stop, loud footsteps approach
pompous, self-righteous,

a peacock preening before his men,
declaiming your (apparently many) crimes.
you are a witch, a hag, a horrifying crone,
who wanders midnight graveyards

and gathers nettles by the sickly light
of the eldritch moon,
for what purpose he knows not,
but clearly for the casting of wicked spells

like the one you have - in vain! -
attempted to cast on him,
but he was too strong of will,
too stalwart and steadfast

and now you will at last face justice
in the form of cleansing flame.
he will consume you, one way or another,
by fire or the marital bed.

the smoke eats at your mucus
and membrane, chokes you
with the weight of it
forced into your staggering chest

you cough, and you cough,
and you cough, and you cry,
and you keep weaving, keep
sewing, keep sowing the seeds
of your desperate witch’s spell—

graveyard nettles plucked at midnight,
dappled silver by the moon,
spun to stinging thread
and wetted with weeping,
woven by a willingly wordless woman
into the rough facsimile of two shirts,
large enough for a full-grown swan—

a quarter of a sleeve left.
you squint painfully through the haze
trying to see— there!
a flash of white, here then gone

then here again, white wings
spreading wide, sweeping
your captors away,
shielding you within the soft down
of their feathery embrace,

a last-ditch, stupid, suicidal effort
and you love them all the more for it,
even as you have the urge
to wring their long white necks—

but there is no time.
closing your eyes, you think a prayer

and throw the shirts out wide.

what’s your fairytale, she asks
apropos of nothing

____________my what?

your fairytale, she repeats
you know
once upon a time,
and they lived happily ever after?

everyone has one—

words burning deep
humming sharp and clear
cutting right to the heart of you
sinking deep and burying
in the aching marrow of bone

everyone has one—

narrative reverberating
echoing and amplifying the pulsing
beat beat beat of your heart
twining itself through your entire being
as though it was already part of you

everyone has one—

although nobody likes to admit it—
it’s the mortifying ordeal of being perceived,
she confides, of recognizing the self
through the other—

so what’s your fairytale?
she asks again

everyone has one.

did it happen that way?
maybe. maybe not.

your head hurts and
the light above buzz and fluoresce
the phone rings, papers shuffle
your mother’s voice is sharper now
but you’ve stopped listening

your head hurts and
the world is a distant, alien place
edges too sharp, too bright
so real it wraps right back around
to unreality

your head hurts and
the counter of the receptionist’s desk
is cool and smooth against your skin
your spine bowed, legs locked
forehead pressed to the hard surface

your head hurts and
the receptionist sound conciliatory
but also implacable
there are no sooner appointments
no, there’s nothing they can do

your head hurts and
through the haze of it suddenly
an impossible fact breaks through
not your mother’s aggressive politeness
she has always been a standing army

your head hurts and
your mother is crying, angry and helpless
and it’s terrifying to see
terrifying to know
your mother is not unstoppable

your head hurts and
the advil doesn’t work and
the tylenol doesn’t work and
the tests don’t show anything and
the doctors are starting to look skeptical and

you don’t have the words for this
you don’t know how to explain

all you know is your head hurts and
your mother is a comforting warmth against your side
a cool hand stroking your hair
and her voice is sharp and tight
as she argues with the receptionist
with the doctor with the specialist

your head hurts and
you want your mother to make it stop and
for the first time you see her as she is
and not some omnipotent titan

your head hurts and
your mother is crying and

you just want the pain to stop.

this is harder than you expected.

your effort assessment module is still off,
despite all the attempts at readjustment.
you think this last fix may have worked a little toowell.

or maybe not well enough?

this is easier than you expected,
now that you’ve gotten started.
you think there’s a thermodynamic metaphor in that somewhere.

maybe.
it’s been a long time since AP chem,
even longer since you were failing physics.

it’s harder than you expected,
generating the activation energy needed
to overcome the inertia of exhaustion,

and then all of a sudden it’s easy again
easier, easier, perhaps too easy now,
the words tripping over themselves

syllables stumbling through stanzas
assonance and consonance tumbling together
faster and faster, music turned laughter turned terror—

stopping is harder than you expected.

you don’t have an end for this poem.

you don’t feel particularly poetic at the moment;
it’s hard to make poetry out of pain.

physical pain, I mean.

it’s hard to not make poetry out of emotional pain,
which is why you write so many poems
to begin with—

it comes on slowly but suddenly
a ghost of a sensation
suddenly become blood and flesh

and synapses screech in protest
muscles twisting and turning
desperate to escape the merciless ache
screwing itself into sinew
burying itself into bone

there is no escape from this
no reprieve
no way out but through–

close your eyes and count

count moments count spasms
count bit off cries and swallowed swear words
count tears and frustrated flails of fists–

breathe, my darling, breathe.
in,one.out, two.

we’re out of the opening montage now
but this is still an apocalypse movie.
we’ve switched genres:
action to drama, exciting to dark.

this film will not be playing in all theaters.

the opening montage is over now:
this is the slow grind
of not quite rising action.
the camera slows down, pans

wide angles of aimlessness
interspersed with sudden

jumps in focus.

zoom in, now. let the music fade.
adjust the lights.
they should be harsher, sharper
as real and rasping as sandpaper.
as loud as a ventilator’s wheeze.

emphasize the gritty reality of it all:
this is the new normal.
do not comment on the societal changes.
let them speak for themselves:

the casual mask hooked over the gearshift handle,
the shuffling bored awkwardness of space stretching out a line,
the routine airlock protocols and pause
of a dasher leaving food,
of a customer picking it up.

pause here, with children playing covid.
let the viewer marvel

at the human ability to adapt.

linger a moment longer,
one breath, then another, then

flash to one deathbed after another
each ventilator blurring into the next
sheets pulled up over faces
while tweet after tweet plays

the government can’t - unconstitutional -
do your own research - make your own decision -
respect my choice - my beliefs - my rights

zoom in on a twitter profile.

they call themselves pro-life.