Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Palinode of Amanda Bynes


My heart cut out by Nickelodeon
and boxed for their wicked queen.
I’d take them back, every last tweet.
I’m curdled and raw and obscene.

Perez and Courtney and Chrissy,
smell my heart sizzle on the third rail.
If I’ve ever tweeted you’re ugly,
it’s my mind that’s grown a spiked tail.

As the bong sailed from the window
I figured it had sprouted wings.
My heart is a tattered box kite.
When I’m high I do stupid things.

I meant that Drake should stake it
and not actually murder my vagina;
my isolation is finally complete,
my heart a cup of bone china.


Friday, May 24, 2013

Celebrity Stalking


The celebrities are at it again. They keep
stalking me for poetry. Just the other day
George Clooney tried to deliver my pizza
so I could sign his broadside, Meryl Streep
crouched in my back yard with a chapbook,
Julia Roberts broke into my bathroom
to ask about meter, and Charlie Sheen left
twenty-six messages asking for [sic] sexstinas
written in the colloquial language of porn,
but these movie stars think they know the real me
behind the poetry because they read tabloids
in line at the super market that detail
the lurid private lives of poets who take lovers,
get caught without make-up, carry small dogs,
enjoy gay trysts, drink absinthe and own
many-chambered homes with deep-pile
cream carpets, secret rooms, and libraries
the size of Luxembourg. They couldn’t know
that I’m allergic to even numbers and no longer
fluent in filthy words. I’m feeling dogged
with anxiety on this spring nocturnal 
in the City of Angels, a hundred watt moon 
on the rise and the song birds playing music 
well past prime time like neighbors 
with no children. What we sacrifice 
for our art. We didn’t ask for this.  

Saturday, May 11, 2013

The Circumstances of Your Birth

Either you were pushed from your mother's womb with great effort or a doctor cut the red lining and lifted you into the glare of hospital lights. Either your mother fed you from her breast or fed you formula like the majority of us 70s babies. In the worst circumstances your mother was gone too early for you to have a memory of her.

Either you were born whole or something happened in utero when cell met cell or during birth, and you've been forced, by nature of your bearing, to rise above a physical or mental handicap. In the worst circumstances, genetics or delivery has rendered you so broken that people avert their eyes when your mother rolls you into the neurologist's office.

Either you were born into a family as an only child, or you had siblings for companions. Either you were happy with this scenario or not. In the worst circumstances, you had a sibling once, but something happened to him or her. You may or may not remember. Your family may or may not talk about what they lost. Photos may or may not be displayed. This feature sometimes hangs like a thread. Pull it, and the whole family falls apart.


Either you were born of good stock, your parents both bright and attractive, neither harboring hidden fuck-ups, or you were born of parents, one or the other (or sometimes both), who struggle with deep-seated dysfunctions that were handed down to them by their parents, and you wonder if you can make it all stop with you. In the best circumstances, nurture overcomes nature, whether its a self-provided nurture or one afforded by family. In the worst circumstances, the defective aspect of your nature has been compounded by a lack of effective nurturing, and you either have no idea that you're a mess, or you have no idea how to clean up the mess that is you, thanks to a lack of both breeding and upbringing.

Either you were born in the best hospital your town has to offer, your mother given a basket of diapers and formula samples, or you were born in a home with a midwife and doula present. In the most remarkable situations you were born in an emergency room when your mother didn't even know she was pregnant, in the back of a cab because your mother waited too long and your father was on duty, or on your mother's kitchen floor because she was single and didn't get help in time. In worse situations, you were born in the grass of an impoverished country where you were sent off to an orphanage to wait, hopefully, for first-world parents you may or may not ever connect with.

Either you were born into a family that pulls you to them, the physical second-nature, all mouth-kisses, bear-hugs, and spooning in your parents' big bed, your mother's breasts as commonplace a sight as the hummingbird feeder in the kitchen widow, or you were raised by a family that was afraid of the body and its affections, and you're still unsure which way to tilt your head when you awkwardly wrap your arms around your father on special occasions. In worst situations, you were never shown tenderness and you've grown up unable to connect in a meaningful way with another human being.

Either you were born into a world where the car seats are Britax and the preschools are competitive, or you were born into a world where your mother has three jobs or no job, your food is government-provided, and you're often shipped off to the house of a grandparent or aunt when your mother or father is deemed an insufficient parent by the state. Many assume you'll amount to nothing. In worst situations, you're born in a country where famine and disease are commonplace, and any opportunities for labor that your mother may have are offered by first-world countries looking to take advantage of the circumstances of her birth.

Or some combination; it's rarely either/or. How blessed are you?

Friday, May 3, 2013

Miscarriage

Sometimes something terrible can startle you with its beauty. Take, for example, the bright ruby cabochon of blood I saw on my toilet paper a few weeks into an unexpected—but desperately wanted—pregnancy. The sun from the bathroom window glimmered off the perfectly round jewel, which was the first to appear, and then they just poured out of me, unformed and unfaceted, until I was an empty bag again. 

According to the week-by-week pregnancy newsletter I had optimistically signed up for, I was only in that fifth week, which is when this usually happens. The heartbeat comes a week or two later. Technically, I knew I was pregnant only for a short while, although my body knew prior to any plus symbol on a piece of plastic. I had a dream somewhere around conception that I was pregnant, and in it I could see the shape of a baby's hand through the skin of my belly. Sometime around implantation I was half awakened by a tingling in my breasts, which partially registered as dream. So I suspected. And just as I had a feeling I was pregnant before testing, I knew I wasn't pregnant anymore the minute I saw that first drop of blood. I checked in, and my body said, sorry, no. 

The hormone dump afterward complicated the grieving, or it made the grief for a gathering of cells that didn't even have a heartbeat yet more crushing, and I stopped functioning for a little while. My four-year-old said Mama, you're okay as he patted my head. The dogs crowded around my face to lick the salt off. My husband offered support and affection, but his response was more complicated since this was a pregnancy he didn't want.

A miscarriage happens thirty-three percent of the time in women over the age of forty. I guess I'm a statistic now. I'll be forty-three this June, and my husband doesn't want another child. I knew one was the magic number going in, so he's not a villain. I tried to renegotiate, and my accidental pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Therefore, it was the last chance I had for a second child. When we don't get what we want, we move on and hope no bitterness remains.

We have to admit though, if motherhood has resonated for any of us, we're talking a little bit about where addiction and instinct collide. For example, the painful sweetness as your baby first latches on, and you feel that cramp in your gut as his small mouth pulls your body back together. I remember how I wept as I folded the beanie and shirt my newborn son came home in, how they could fit in a Zip-loc. Knowing I will never again experience such complex joy feels like a personal tragedy.

And to be fair, it is personal. Directly after the miscarriage, I was a terrible person. I didn't think I could love my friends who were fortunate enough to have as many children as they wanted. I wanted to snatch babies away from teenagers I saw on the bus. I dreamed up ways to become pregnant anyway. But then when I became my true self again, once my body settled, I remembered how fortunate I am. I have a husband who is good with his son and good to me. I have a beautiful boy who is healthy and whole. I was able to become a mother and many women aren't. Many women lose their babies to accidents, violence, or disease.

In the end, really, I am one of the lucky ones.