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20 de Noviembre 2008
a man with teeth like yours
came in and smiled and i missed you really a lot.
i've been thinking a lot about the Annunciation, and Mary and some other virgins, or notvirgins, which is a more accurate telling.
so when Michael Erik Dyson started in on power and justice and all that, i couldn't really listen very well. i took a few notes:
"i want to see my race and my identity legitimated"
"justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public"
"...so it (power, justice, whathaveyou) can be concretely realized for all people"
"ambition is realized when we treat people fairly"
"freedom to and freedom from"
"i wasn't supposed to be able to..."
and then i was astounded when my good friend wrote this little poem on my notes, please note the care he took with the lines, they are perfectly enjambed, and the punctuation is flawless, if you know what i mean:
"if my dad
were
here
he'd probably say something
like, "I'm sweating
like a whore in church."
then
laugh
at his own irony
i'd roll my eyes, embarrassed
but laugh inside"
i've stopped taking notes on lectures and started writing down my own thoughts about what it might mean to be friends with the other people in the room.
so here is a little poem about annunciation (when someone tells you
the truth is, you're not a virgin and you wonder how long that has been true because, really, the truth is the sexiest thing about you) and The Annunciation, as i imagine it, given my limited experience with these kinds of big T truths.
it is called,
Dear Truth, for the first time
You did it! you came but how i can still say
congratulations, and goodbye in the same hopeful tone, I just don't know.
and now the smell of you and heartache and the truth of
first things, sweet and salty, all things tight and dutiful,
fill the space, thin and ripe with condensation
between my skin and yours.
between your first chance to save me, to tell the others
to step aside.
What does ready look like, taste like?
Am I when you are here?
How and how well will you know me?
Will I know you when you're done with me?
This has to be wrong--it feels too good, I feel too much of you
to think about you if you dare to come close
to die a little death. O Truth,
the skin of your fingers, the little lines of your fingerprint
vibrations, small scale like the horsetail
bow against the violin strings,
the way something seeming so smooth can
rub out such a penetrating frequency.
You watched and felt me dance, I moved to the rhythm of your heartbeat hovering low over my own, quickening.
Your clutching my throat, as if to murder me or own me from the inside out.
You, Truth, move gently but quickly and finish both of us off.
I always hope
you'll leave when if I see you coming close.
And if you sneak up behind me or look down on me,
put your cheek against the space between my shoulder blades
and I sink my face into the pillow
like I do when I'm keeping sadness a secret
and stay close long enough--until
I tried to tell you
no
just this morning.
But my voice, not the words, was warm and inviting
in your face,
in your mouth,
in your eyes
and you read between the lines
of my desire
not able to talk to me, only to come to me but
not to belong to me
as long as I will love you
or need
and the rest
of the day
the sound of you approaches and recedes, comes and goes, and I know I've loved you,
so long.
i have a theory about addictions, i've told you before that i am confident that it has something to do with chemicals, and that stands still, i guess, and also, today i think, maybe, and i don't want to hurt your feelings but i want to tell you, to confess:
you thought you were addicted to porn
i thought you were addicted to the truth.
help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 9:47 AM
