When I was 26, I slept with a man who felt
much older than me. He told me it was his Jesus
year—33—age of crucifixion. Of rebirth. Lying
on his bed listening to Tangled Up In Blue,
I thought I was special because I was doing wrong.
Imagine it, stigmata. All the gore with none of the
hammer and nails. All I can wonder now is,
how will I fill all this time? Still, I can’t
smell Irish Spring bar soap without thinking
of him. How a look on the stairwell in the English
Department was enough for me. How You’re really
talented had me running miles through the rain.
Eventually, I learned to drive. Learned to fold clean
washing. Learned to write like a heart attack. Like
a fit. Like a hangnail. Like grinding teeth. Like
a hummingbird. Like an arterial bleed. A studio
apartment does not make you grown. A secret can
feel like a cocoon, but it is a damp studio apartment
on its best day. In my Jesus year, I am so much
older than I once was. We must live, I have decided,
like we are chewing on tin foil. Live like we are pulling
strands of mango flesh from a pit. Sticky hands.
A kind of stigmata. Eating stonefruit like this
is honest. To exist is embarrassing. Today, I bought
a shirt that says NUESTRA LUCHA ES POR LA VIDA,
which means, I think, that fighting just for meaning
is no longer enough. Which means, I think, none of that
matters. She was never crazy, was she? He will never tell me
now, but he could. He could peel back time like
the waxy skin it is and say he is sorry for what he did. I am.
Everywhere I look, there are horrors. More than anything,
now, that means, I think, we need some kind of a second
coming. Writing, maybe, should be more like yogurt than a heart
attack. It should be absolutely fucking teeming with life.