April 15: eating words

here I am, again,
in an empty-fan-whirring-room
in the silence of almost noon

tip-toeing around myself

feeling quiet. dazed. remembering
that there will be days which are not
horribly sad, or even terribly happy;
there will be days and nights and hours
when I just am, when I just lie
in bed and try not to let my aching toe
touch the wall, when I just want to sleep
but cannot, when I just want to feel, but
I will have to force myself to. so I don't.

here again, I am, it is nearly noon

I keep trying to feed my rumbling stomach
words, expecting it to acquiesce, stop sounding
like a thunderstorm brewing under my ribs.

here again, these late and silly realisations:
words are not food. words are not love.
words are not air, or memory-water.
words are  w o r d s .

I could romanticise anything.
thank goodness for my body
and its aches and mutterings
and its terrible concrete reality
that I cannot wish away.

I am in a daze. the sounds outside
come in tides and waves. the fan
continues with its insistent noise
of summer. P once asked me
why I talk about it so much;
perhaps my fan is noisier
than most. perhaps my mind
is not quiet enough. perhaps

I should eat and stop reading,
bathe and stop thinking,
let everything smell
of whiskey and charcoal-fixative,
slow and meaningless mornings.

my mind is in a landscape of
snow at every edge - but my body
is here, in this sweltering heat, these
long days, these moments that hang
in my throat and quiver expectantly.

my skin is aching and finds it
hard enough to cover my own
meager bones; here I am,
trying to wrap a whole world
in it, stitch the seams with words
and sun, hold in the light as if
I own it. I do not, I do not.