I'll Never Be Able to Publish This Gross LIttle Poem Now, So Here...
I got a research fellowship and so I moved back to New York in 2018. The gig was for a year, but it felt right; I'd wanted to go back to New York. I thought I would be as blissful as I was when I lived there in the early otts.
But I found it very stressful. Not just the getting around, though that too, but suddenly I found myself being very intolerant, in fact - grossed out by (of all things) dirt and germs. It was strange because this is not my particular brand of OCDishness. I like beets. I repot plants with bare hands. I sit in the grass. I can. handle the earth!
But this time being there. Everything smelled strong. Everything felt dirty. I found myself washing my hands a lot and taking off all my clothes when I got in the house. I used things to press elevator buttons. I got picky about restrooms. I was kind of overwhelmed by the tactile aspect.
And of course, when the universe sees you being squeamish like that - she will fuck with you. So I found myself tripping in vomit, stepping in dogshit, men next to me on the train would drop their sweaty hairy legs onto mine. Women sneezed on me. One time I came out to my car and found this...
...yeah that's blood.
Another time, rats moved into the engine. This is their bathroom.
...which was actually not far from their kitchen.
Anyway, New York was very visceral this time around. So I wrote this poem. This was December of 2018. It's completely unviable as a poem now, for obvious pandemic reasons. So I'll post it here. It's interesting though, I think it's one of the reasons I was vying to get out of dodge so quickly. I just felt...slimed on.
I belittle the germ
Because of the dirt, the soles, the steady dragging in.
I belittle the germ. Hack it off at the neck. Stand in dominion
and devalue. Ward off. Send away. Look at all this leak, the spit
the bowel under nail, the way we kiss each cheek and absorb
one another’s wayward downwind of mouth. Wipe it off, then
swipe it into cloth and fabric. Relax and catch it. Can see it
coming in the soggy air. Hocking up. Taking aim. Dogs
with them, doing it everywhere. Too much to pickup
and rub it into glove and drag it down guardrails and pull
it down into knots holding on to the strap, the pole, they
are coming in shells. All bundle of them, faces open at orifice
clothes full of the shit, throats ready to factory, eyes leaking engorged
they are moving in quicker and smiling about it. All happy to shake
hands and touch hair and stand so close, meanwhile you can see
the pores summoning fluid. I am walking toward them, hair
falling out. Trouble in breath, thighs flaking off. We are at
a standstill, bruised at the stitching, deep wave fungus climbing
from the cracked cement into the skin between our feet.
Our feet are always in motion like this. Always in step.
Comments