the time I killed the butterfly on accident,
wings all hole and shred, little cigarette
tipped scars without burn, but
tipped scars without burn, but
before my hands trapped
the butterfly to the ground—
white, whole as a jug of
milk, and fulled enough to be the moon.
dusting wings beat
against my fingers with
a knifing heart, and I
mistook the panic of
filmy frantic veins
for something gentle as an eyelash,
a knifing heart, and I
mistook the panic of
filmy frantic veins
for something gentle as an eyelash,
a slow blink beneath my prison-fingers
what is it about these hands
what is it about this touch
"a knifing heart, and I
ReplyDeletemistook the panic of
filmy frantic veins"
<3
did I ever tell you about the time that I met the dying moth and the medical student that tried to save it with human tears. This poem reminds me of that. Chloe, I trolled you. I feel bad about it. And good about it. I want to press you. I want Novi to expand you and not to denigrate you. Tell me how to be better. Call me if you want.
ReplyDeletei knew it was you jordan. of course i did. who else would say the thing about english majors? you would. which is why i made a passive aggressive post on my blog about novicember that i knew you would see and that you did and that you let me know you saw and none of this is a revelation to either of us, i think? the internet is ridiculous. other people are reading this right now and thinking this is ridiculous. i also think that.
ReplyDeletei remember reading that poem of yours. i thought it was very pretty.
all i want to do on novicember is write a shitty poem a day and that's all. even if it's awful. and if the poem is bad i don't want to feel like a bad person or like a not-cool person, even though i might in actuality be both, i just want to be a person who writes shitty, not-cool poetry and takes without-a-hitch easily passed shits and falls asleep at night not feeling like i have to prod at my anxieties and mental instability with a sharp stick in order to produce art, that's all i want really, and i don't know how much of that even comes from you and how much of these ideas about art come from the world at large. this is long. i don't care. i'm publishing it
well I am glad to know that we are both acute enough to know what's up.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't intended to be mean, but then you gave me an opportunity with your reply, so I took it. I guess the poem itself I found frustrating--like, it's really hard for me to read something where the writer is like 'this is shitty writing and I don't like it' within the piece itself. It meta-as-hell or something but it feels manipulative and creepy. I know it's just a poem, and we just write these things so we will have things written or why ever we do this. But even a quick poem is a big thing.
Anyway, some days I want Novi to be workshop and some days I want it to be anti-workshop and hopefully it never becomes either. I like you. I like whoever else is reading our conversation. Thank you for conversing with me.