Closed doors
are so much more
enticing
than open ones.
Odd or familiar,
cherished or abandoned,
they lead everywhere
all at once.
Infinite constellations
collapse like dominos
into singularity with
the twist of a knob.
What am I afraid of?
Flowers pressed to paper
lose the vibrancy
of impermanence.
Let me exist in the
moments between moments
in the space between
thought and action.
Let me persist
forever in the breath
before the door begins
to open.
This is the poem I can't write.
I've never hit the backspace so many times,
never scribbled out so many lines. This is the
ball of yarn I'm not sure I'll ever untangle.
The knot I've left unbrushed since childhood,
but now it's so matted, it breaks all my
scissors and combs. Look at me hiding behind
metaphors because I'm afraid I'll cut my fingers
on the point. Because the point is that I use
other women to determine my self-worth.
That I'm never sure if I'm good enough
unless I'm the best and there is always
someone better isn't there?
That another women's success feels like
a personal attack, and shit I don't want to talk
about this but I think we need to talk about this,
because every time I see a provocative woman
I hate myself, and I hate her a little bit too.
And I get the feeling I'm not the only one who
uses an outdated rubric to determine their
grade. The only one who needs a grade to
feel they have value. God I want to scrub this
off so hard that it stings. This inky stain
ignored for so long it's become a tattoo
so ugly I'd rather pretend it's a birthmark.
Like envy was the sin assigned to me by God.
Some days I look in the mirror and think I'm
beautiful, not despite, not in comparison to.
Just truth. And then I hear an old coworker
telling me the hottest women are the ones who
don't know it. A chorus of lamentation about
my fat thighs. All the careful reminders that
boys will jump when offered something better.
And there's always something better isn't there?
Now I've taken you down to the bottom
of the well. This is where the echoes live,
the place where I point fingers at corpses.
Where I use other women's bodies as
stepping stones to try to escape.
Because we all want to escape.
But this isn't a birthmark.
And I don't believe in sin.
Or God.
Or unsolvable problems.
So why the hell do I believe that anyone
could be better? Or worse?
And I think I'm scared to write because I don't
know how it ends. I wish I knew how to
translate thought into feeling.
To transfigure conviction into belief.
But I don't.
I don't.
We should have said goodbye,
but "I'll see you soon"
inflates the hours like balloons
and softens our fall.
I think we all know
the movies are a lie:
goodbye is taboo
for all but happy endings.
So we just pretend
we'll see each other again,
and even on a deathbed
we'll say goodbye
without the punctuation
just in case.
Just in case.
Can you hear it too?
The phantom ringing of a phone
we set to silent?
Weren't we taught that
unlocked doors are dangerous?
But then again,
what hope isn't?
Do you recall the moment
you were introduced to the ladder?
Maybe you were sat on the ground,
forced to squint against the sun
while they pointed out some lofty goal.
Or maybe you were placed on a rung,
lifted by loving arms while you judged
the distance you'd have to fall
if you took just one wrong step.
No wonder you want to defend it,
all the hours you climbed and fretted,
the blistered hands from grasping
and lifting, bruised shins from slipping.
No wonder your fingers instinctively curl
when I tell you: that ladder never existed.
No wonder you cling so tightly that your nails
press false woodgrain into your flesh
until that imaginary position is as
identifying as your own handprint.
If only you'd look around you'd see
those cuts and scrapes weren't in vain;
it's no shame to trip on the uneven ground,
and so much easier to get up again.
Without the dizzying vertigo of ascent
you'll see how far you've come compared
not to everyone walking by your side,
but to that unique place you started from.
@amnotpoetry