So this is a longer poem that is a sequence that
was very hard for me to write.
I talked about it in the class, in Claire's class
earlier today, and you all asked about it.
I know you asked about it, thank you.
So I'm going to read it.
So a little content warning that this is about emotional abuse.
So if that's an experience that you've had, just be prepared.
"The Friend."
A public road.
A man at a tea shop that doesn't exist
saw a woman and an other woman.
He heard everything the woman said to the other woman.
This woman was saying, fuck you and how
dare you louder and louder, and then later on the street.
The man at the tea shop wasn't there
when the woman screamed at the other woman on the street.
The man at the tea shop wasn't there
when the woman said to the other woman
that the tea shop wasn't there.
"A Friend."
With a handful of raspberries in my hand,
a voice is asking me in my head why
I don't include the bad things.
I say it's because I don't want violence to be beautiful.
That I am responsible to what I make beautiful.
But does beauty have anything to do with violence
and what's made of it?
"A Friend."
I don't remember which episode of the R. Kelly documentary I
am watching with my sister.
Andrea Kelly, his now ex-wife, tells a story
of how she was told to stay in her room
while he watched a basketball game with guests.
She is getting hungry but doesn't have permission
to leave the room.
Sparkle hears a strange knocking over the basketball
and wonders what it is, but Robert doesn't notice.
Sparkle notices.
Andrea trying to get attention.
The door opens.
Oh, that's right, Andrea Kelly doesn't tell this story.
It's Sparkle who tells the story.
When Andrea Kelly tells a story, she will start to cry.
The dark place stays where the dark still plays in her mind.
"The Friend."
It is spring and all the buds have bloomed.
I enter the kitchen and there is silence
except for you talking to your friend who is also my friend.
Silence means I am now unseen.
We are getting groceries.
I follow you to your car, into the back seat
where your dogs are kept.
You keep talking to your friend who is also my friend.
He talks back to you.
I lean forward.
My voice lingers but it leaves the car.
When I walk behind you to the grocery store,
I still don't know what I have done.
There, the produce glistens louder
than I am to the universe.
To your friend, who is also my friend,
you aren't silent when you talk to him.
I am.
If I'm heard, it is only the car.
If I'm seen, it is only the produce moving.
In the kitchen, we are making dinner.
Your friend, who is also my friend,
tells us both to stop fighting.
But I am not fighting, I am noticing where I don't exist.
I should leave.
But when we move, it's to the den to watch a show.
I try but can't stomach the episode.
What is it that happens when you whisper across the den?
Striking match after match.
A fire now swelling on the tongue.
Somehow it goes from what I did to you breaking me down
like a stick for the flame.
What I did to you always deserve this.
What you did to me was this.
What I did, I brought you raspberries.
I'll go to sleep before night sees past your darkening
corridor.
We get to the room and I'm dared to agree you're the monster.
I neither lie nor tell the truth for both of us.
And very precisely, you tell me there's
a bus that runs early in the morning
if I don't want you to drive me.
Very precisely, I think about this bus
in the dream I don't leave.
Somehow it goes from you asking me again
what it is I want from you and me not remembering
if I said nothing.
Only the feeling of my throat swollen and my head
beating in silence I can't talk myself out of.
What do I want from you but not this.
Then you daring me to call you a monster
and you saying no, that's not it.
I don't ask for it, but you circle facts about the morning
bus that doesn't require me to drive you then
re-enter the dark.
And your friend who's my friend is in the den,
still enjoying the show.
I can't stomach the episode.
I'll go to sleep.
So you lead me through the dark corridor.
I'm prompted.
You thought you would sleep in my room.
The point is not the question, it is the silent answer.
How dare you.
You leave me in this other room at 11:00PM.
It is your house I doze beneath the covers, teeth chattering,
until I tried to stop listening.
Above, the sound of the show which is loud enough for you
and your friend who is also my friend.
You are my friend.
And I hate how I can't sleep in the cold.
I hate having to emerge from the corridor just
to ask for something warm.
But no one who loves me hears exactly what
you're saying to me.
No one who loves me is here to hear what I say back,
and even I've forgotten myself speaking.
Would they cover their ears ashamed of how I am comforting
you or would they help me move?
You lead me back through the door.
You hand me a sweatshirt that is yours
and you want nothing to do with it.
It is not even dark in the night until you switch off the light
to emerge in the light.
Within the year, you scream at me over text
then in whispers, then on the phone, then on the street,
with stories, with politics, with love, with anger,
with tears.
Then finally, crawling then not remembering.
I disappeared.
It is spring.
The buds must have bloomed in the cold.
It is a year before we separated.
You were my friend.
So the show that we were watching
was actually Project Runway.
Coincidence.
That did not besmirch my love for Project Runway
though, I will say.
OK.