Liquid Courage

at amy winehouse’s last show, ‘back to black’ was performed with a touch of black bile at the back of her throat   crescendos rotting into a last breath   eye contact melting into the bloodless stare of a stillborn she said     she didn't want to die and I imagine those words laced with caked blood over her abdomen   wavering sting of dried whiskey in matted hair

years and miles away   my skin is gleaming red   blotches scattered in a betrayal of emotion   and once in the clinical glow of a classroom    a friend asked me if I were drunk

you know the answer was that on April evenings I lay face-down on a floor to wake up bent over in darkness   the black box of thought and time like a promise made by God
I wanted to say to you   this is my body     this is the ectoplasm and this is the disease
I wanted to say   if you looked closely at my palm lines maybe you could make out a horizon   maybe you could make out your daughter

for in that weightlessness I could tell the dead I loved them    could dig up the heartbreak and press its seams against my thighs

but there is something I can only put into a cry    and something about that look in your eyes and won't you tell me what it is    won’t you still call me your baby

trying magnesium for anxiety

but if that doesn’t work then call your mother / & tell her the truth / if not think Rejection is Redirection and start / naming unrelated things in your head / insomnia   heartthrob   backyard   love & if not lay on your mother’s parka / & pretend she’s holding your hair up // think It’s a Wonderful World / think cremation or burial / beef or chicken imagine / someone’s honeyed breaths laying across the foot of your bed / & think about a metronome: numbness on one end / lunacy on the other / as you drift away / from its fruitless air // if not think chamomile   lovebirds   the sun teetering / like a mother over the horizon // if not ignore the days wrung out like water from a towel / because whether you / can ever love is a question / for tomorrow / & if loss isn’t there / for you to lean on / there’s always / longing: Oh my darling / why won’t you answer / 7AM midnight in Dover / Sun’s coming up now / I guess it’s over¹

¹lyric from ‘Sun’s Coming Up’ by Tame Impala

November 22, 2024