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Poetry

Four poems

Gabrielle Griot

Two Truths and a Lie

Joni Mitchell doesn’t want to be called confessional
She thinks Anne Sexton was a dirty liar 
Who couldn’t even be honest with her shrink 
But I don’t think the point of poetry is to be honest
And I don’t think the point of life is to shrink
I don’t know if there’s even a point to honesty
Like if I change my mind five times in an hour
That doesn’t exactly make me sane 
But it also doesn’t make me a liar 
I don’t know why I said I had a process
I don’t have a process
I don’t even have a savings account
I don’t know where I’m going to be in five weeks
Let alone five years 
And I can’t stop writing terrible poetry 
And telling terrible lies
When another one of my favourite artists gets sober
I don’t think oh that’s great for them  
Instead I think another one bites the dust
And then I pour myself another drink
I don’t believe in radical tenderness
I don’t believe in unabashed joy 
I don’t believe in anything at all 
I used to want to write beautifully
Now I just get called brave for saying fuck in all my poems
It’s pathetic that I’m writing 
From this meta-confessional point of view
This poem is objectively bad
And it will be called out as such by the editors
But I can’t stop posting cringe 
On the internet of life
It’s an addiction
Like irony-poisoned golf or infinite scroll 
Expensively scented candles or autofictional masturbation 
I’m not good at poetry 
But I’m also not good at anything else 
My therapist says there’s nothing wrong with me
But she’ll prescribe the antidepressants if I want them

 

Leaving 404

look me in the monitor and tell me I’m here
in your tie-dye shirt drenched in ultraviolet
you can’t see but I’m buffered and untethering
and I can’t do it on demand but I pretend I can
because simultaneity’s nice and you tell me that
you love me when you do. it was paradise really   
in your supersonic home & now the Amazon 
is just asphalt and dust but I guess we’ll always 
have the Berkshires & Laurie Anderson & 
Adam Duritz & everyone who thinks this poem
is about them it’s not but it’s fun to pretend 
I’m not split or spectral or possibly incapable 
of love. take a number on your way in. 
we’ll call you when it’s your turn.

 

High Resolution

I drink enough so it feels good
or like nothing                   I can’t remember

can’t stop opening the orifice
the horned wound            the pulpy rotten cavity

 

sometimes, pretend to be dead  

lie there like you’re dead. doesn’t matter
if you’re dead            they’ll do it anyway

 

dead girl is insatiable                she’ll swallow herself
whole she’ll swallow you too    she’ll drink every last drop

              & say thank you for the privilege

 

I’ll dissociate like one of your French philosophers
right there       in the shower        on the bed        on the floor        
surrounded by wolves         licking their lips            stroking their

                until the Censor blacks it out

 

Lately I’ve Been Crying

with gratitude at the small things
like when my Experian credit report

tells me I’m exceptional 
            & I almost believe it

christening new lashes with castor oil 
& cradling the rice like someone’s baby

crawling up the stairs & kissing 
your best friend in a dream

 

            things happen
            & I let them

 

driving perfectly straight   
down American roads that go on &

on forever & ever amen
lying        perfectly straight

on latex floors lacerating
my emptiness      afterbirthing angels

in apostatic snow
              lately I just think about 

pearlescent pinks 
cooked               & unspooling 

over me in the shower again
& again it’s a lot less effort

to close my eyes & think about
everything I’ve ever thought about

than actually having to try it for myself
            & besides nothing feels good 

except strip mall margaritas
& rum punch by the jukebox

bookmarking our delusion
bloodletting our thirst          beneath the supermarket moon 

 

            hey I love you
            I’m sorry about everything

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