I watch and memorize your details, dear, because I love you
And you inspire me to strengthen my weakness.
I forget my keys, my meals, my schedule, my clothes, even,
But retain the abstract of each, the way they make me feel, the ideas they represent
And that's okay, I like it that way.
I have all these feelings, you know, and sometimes I don't have any
But either way it's very distracting
And so I lose my shoes outdoors, somehow,
Drop my phone countlessly,
Ask the store clerk to please hand me my purchases
While I have, in fact, been holding them the whole time
And I break my heart to find a meaning in all this.
But then when I do, or when I read it somewhere and it really moves me --
Well, these days, every time I find this beautiful thesis
I remember that someone like Rumi, for example, or Rilke
The way they tell me to love seems to capture the whole and arrive
But I never think about it when I really need to
In a moment of pettiness
When someone chews loudly, or says something I've heard a thousand times before
With equally unoriginal self-satisfaction
And I instantly hate myself for how I am thinking about them
And say nothing
But fear, deeply, for my soul.
And the fact that those beautiful words
-- mine, bled out, or others', drunk in --
haven't changed anything about the present reality
About these small details of kindness and acceptance
Makes me lose my faith in meaning
And in ideas and words
And in what I thought I was hunting for.
And it makes me want to burn all my notebooks
And everyone else's, too, for trying to trick me
Again and again and again and again,
Into thinking I could make sense of any of this.
But I am still slack-jawed and absent-minded,
Never having learned even that lesson fully
And stop, very clearly, seeing the things in front of me
Stop hearing the words that are said to me
Because I'm paying more attention to what they reminded me of
Or how they might be rearranged,
Or what truth they could lead me to
And it's all very exciting
But it still hasn't led me to anything that has changed anything,
Really.
I'm still the sad, self-estranged girl I started out as.
I know how to make friends. I know how to kiss.
But I haven't solved a single one of the problems I began with.
I don't even know how to name or count them.
You know a lot about them.
You know a lot about me.
Because you pay attention.
I look in the mirror a lot
I always have, since I was a little girl
Not because I really like the way I look
(sometimes it makes me very sad)
But because it's the most personal example
Of the connection between form and substance
I watch my body and my body watches me.
We are the same, we are together.
I am the theory that connects the facts
Of my limbs and movements and senses
I am the decider and the designer of my actions
And my actions are me, to the world.
This is happening to everyone.
I don't feel like I actually know anyone at all,
as they are, as they intend to be.
I think a lot of people feel this too.
We helplessly theorize, but we are led astray
By our own personalities, our own desires, our own patterns
And we do not recognize each others'.
But you, dear,
With you, I vow to see know both form and substance
Like I do with myself,
Both meaning and detail,
Theory and fact.
So I see you as bonfire, branch extended, bird attentive, book in flight,
But I see also the exact color of your hair in each various kind of light.
And the particular upward regal curve
Of your arm when you reach to pluck a grape
And the pause you take,
Pressing it between a forefinger and thumb,
Before you slide it through your square front teeth:
A moment of imperial appreciation for each.
So, much beyond knowing the idea of you
Or what you represent to me
Or any other pattern I could impose on you,
I hunt down your habits
And idiosyncrasies
(because you are so much more important
than my keys)
When you talk, I don't want to pay attention to what you remind me of
Or the good words that have been said about friendship and love.
My focus is you. I will make my focus you.
The present reality of you before me
The way you eat a grape
The dead skin you pick at
The colors you like to wear
The exact words you say
Your avoidance of trimming your nails
They are sharp and white like elephant tusks
They comb your hair through in a swoop
And gather it on one side of your neck
And then you rest both hands on the tops of your thighs
As you sit, knees folded,
Rocking ever so slightly from side to side,
And listen to me
Watchfully talking to you,
Like watching myself talk in a mirror,
Amazed that a meaning I feel so deeply
Dwells in something that I can see
Amazed to see both theory and fact:
Your light, unreal and invisible,
And the shape and color, also,
Of your small, pointed hands
Cupped over air upon your jeans.
I see both, I recognize both, I praise both, I love both.
You, firebrand in a fishbowl,
I know exactly how you sneeze.
Bless you.
No comments:
Post a Comment