after leila chatti

No birds. No stars. No one remembering how they’re

dead but how brilliant they are. No one saying that

the sun’s just another star, no shaping it in the face of

a lover long lost. No more other realities. No more other lives.

The truth is that we get this one and then we blow it

before we ever had the chance. Again, no birds. No more

metaphors about how they’re flying and how they’re free.

I can’t stand being so full of envy anymore. No more you.

Who in God’s name is the you, ever, anyways? This poem

isn’t for you. I want it to be for me. I want to be selfish in

a piece for once. I’m so tired nowadays. There are no

bird wings or Greek muses that could change that. I’m scared,

and it is not poetic. There is no rebirth that makes this better.

It doesn’t matter that we see the same moon at night, or

the fact that you can pretend I’m the lover stuck in it. I’m just

angry all the time that it saw you first. Would you still love me

if you didn’t have to. If I didn’t say that you’re the one in some

flash fiction piece where you save me. Would you still love me if

you knew how hopeless I was. I said this poem wasn’t for you, but

maybe I’m just angry all the time that you can only appear in stanzas,

anyways. I will make no euphemisms. I am hurt and alone.

silver nightgown girl. lady of the lake.

you sleepwalked into the water

in the early morning light. in your dreams

you died a beautiful death. shotgun girl.

head cocked back for the kill. how you wish it were true.

that you had a silver sword instead of a tongue. that you could

hurt them all back. i’m sorry, little poet. you have words in place of fists.

this is how your god made you. woman, you are their shakespeare,

the gutter angel singing in white, the kind of thing people love to set on fire.

be the kindling for the revolution. let your dresses burn. stand in the open field

and take it all down with you. you will feel so fragile standing there

and the earth will say: i am not like the rest. i was made to hold you.

i became the moon in your sky

just so i could follow you home again. it’s a story

that’s been told many times before, i’m sure. girl chases girl

chases girl chases girl, girl is moonlight, girl is record scratch

and slow dance, girl is ten feet too tall and has forgotten how to wake up.

girl becomes all things breathing in the dead of night

because we are rabid and we cannot sleep.

i’m sorry, we all say, as we prepare to go over this again. you’ve heard it before,

but i miss you, the way that boy in ’87

missed his dog after he ran away

and never stopped believing it would come back one summer afternoon.

i am sure tomorrow i will wake up and you will be outside my door

all roughed-up and the same, bone between your teeth,

soaked in the hot stench of august. and i will say come here, the smiths are playing

on the radio, and we’ve got a decade or two before the world goes to shit.

but the bed isn’t made and the lights are still on,

and i am still stagnant in the cold cold night

sitting outside your window

willing you to look up into this wide chasm

i have built out of my heart.

i have come all this way, baby. i have moved the oceans for you.

i swallowed up the stars

just for a chance that you might look upon me

the way you used to. like i birthed the world

within your bedroom. and the oceans sigh.

and the stars burn for all the faithless children

trying to believe in something. my baby goes to sleep

under the august sky. poor moon. full of universe

and troubled love. i believe in something. i believe

in tomorrow. i say it to the oceans. the waves crash

on the shore. the earth gone. the summer devoured.

firstborn eats the sun like it's candy, a lemon drop between

her teeth, fat and yellow like a taxi cab. forty seconds down

hill street and the light is all broken up, twisting under pools

of gas [tulip petal blood]. she likes pale yellow like dumpling

clouds, yellow like the way the snow drips into puddles

and dribbles gold, the way the crows cough up an aria from

their throats and spit it out onto the sidewalk. yellow like the way

everyone turns and watches her sprint down the scarlet-stained

gravel as if there's glass wedged in her heels, as if she's running

from something that she doesn't quite know. perhaps a sunset.

maybe herself.

ever watch the love of her life laugh from across space and time / and feel fresh, greener than grass - not for jealousy nor for pain - but for love, lust, and a little bit of death / le petit mort, if you will / and a subtle fire races beneath my skin /

ever cast a love spell of the mind and fall in love at first sight - with the girl in line at the grocery store - deathless aphrodite on your dazzling throne - put your words into my mouth so that i may feel them on my lips / and have something to give /

ever marvel at the beauty of the earth - the beauty of she who grows (like a dewy rose) from the earth / she who surpasses all the stars - rivals the goddesses in lovely form - or rather, she who is a goddess, but one you can touch /

ever wonder about things like sex and love and gender and the ever-expanding human experience / because sweet mother, i cannot weave - slender aphrodite has overcome me with longing for that girl (or was it boy?) perhaps -

ever hope that the words she wrote would eclipse the limits of papyrus / dream of a thousand universes filled with a thousand futures? because someone i tell you, in another time, will remember us - immortals, like the gods /

ever hold her sexuality close to her chest / like girls she might've loved / like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough - precious while it lasts, loved until it is ground away / until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground -

this is not the end of our stories.

if he had been someone who cried when the flowers dropped their petals

who held a funeral for his brother's goldfish,

if he had been someone who held his mother's hand while crossing the street

who ran away from the boys on the playground,

if he had been someone who dreaded his birthday, wore glasses, comforted his comrades, loved his sister, then maybe, just maybe, the reader would understand how he moved

through the carnage, killing-

he wasn't, but that doesn't matter.

his past was written for the lock of pandora's box

to keep the hope inside us all.

O Beloved Princess Mildred,

I've noticed your return address keeps changing...perfect! I trust that this is due to your special talents, just the reason I have sought out your help. You'll find the details of my condition enclosed, and I will eagerly await the charming young man who carries me my postage every morning to see your name on one of those fancy envelopes.

- Evelyn

P.S. Worry not! He is not half as lovely as your quick witted notes.

...

Miss Evelyn,

I do hope that your oh-so-charming young postman is not too young and handsome. I would hate to be replaced by some good-natured gentleman with a hero complex and an eye for burdened young women. I have reviewed your attachments and would like some more time to puzzle over them. There are a few curiosities and I wonder...

- M

...

Darling Queen of the Heavens,

How quick you are to judge our young postman! He is not so insufferable as that. He walks with a spring in his step and color in his cheeks so I infer that he already has a young lover tucked away somewhere...And as for your request I understand, but do not think that I will cease our lovely correspondence! You are far too fascinating for that to happen.

-E

...

Miss Evelyn,

Do as you wish.

-M

a man is asked to draw a bedroom and he draws a womb. slow and delicate and humming with sleep. it’s three in the morning and she is crawling back into her mother, sheets for sinew, darkness for darkness, while cigarette smoke in a tight dress dances to elton john outside the door. do tell, is it worth it to ask for something? god’s name crawls in her mouth like blood spilling from a split lip. acrid prayer in bedroom chapel. teenager watching the ceiling stars on scraped knees and forgetting god’s name. maybe it sounds something like a mother. like heels twirling to rocket man on the cracked linoleum. like early morning shifts and late night black coffees. like disappearing and forgetting to come back. she does not meet god. she never will. someone devoured him for breakfast years ago and took his only beating heart to the grave.

Mrs. Addington,

I apologize for the postcard, but I am compelled to use them as I have no envelopes. Dear old Mrs. Hayes gave me your address and I hope you don't mind, but you are the only person in the world who I believe will be able to help me. If you reply I shall be indebted to you.

Your Friend,

Evelyn Elliott

P.S. Do you mind if I call you Mildred?

...

Miss Evelyn,

Frankly, I am appalled at your forwardness. You may call me Mrs. Addington and apologize to Mrs. Hayes for referring to her in such a way. I will be having a word with her myself. I have attached extra envelopes for you to use.

Mildred

...

My Dearest Madame Addington of Manhattan,

I would like to formally apologize from the bottom of my heart for being so careless with my crass words and requests. I beg you madame, let me seek your counsel so that I may be better fit as a member of high society.

Eternally Gratefully Yours,

Mademoiselle Elliott

...

Miss Elliott,

Well then, that's better.

Mildred

rain spits it’s fury on those who died before their grave was complete

at the wedding they were throwing food stamps instead of rice

half made wishes from half finished homes feel their way through city streets

darkness kisses bloodied knuckles as trapped minds search for a feeling they will not find

politicians wrap their fingers around the necks of children

as men in cubicles with gunpowder on their lips consult the stars