the quotidian reality of death – Em Brill

June 10, 2021

ASSEMBLING A MEANING-PICTURE WITH WORDS THAT’S GESTURING TOWARD SOMETHING (A POEM ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP, WHICH IS OVER NOW)

 
Here I am scrawling in my notebook
Stuff like “Endless vortex of pain and possibility,
Speak as the gods speak”
And I’m like OK
I admit it
We were never going to work
You’re a materialist
And my head’s in the clouds

Texting you was so fun
I could’ve waited forever
Eyes eggshell pink and growing
To the size of giant eyes
Whirlpools
Like those quicksand mudpits
That 3-5 young people disappear into each year at Yellowstone

You threw yourself into a new way of living
And it swallowed you
And I think you’re better off
And I never really lost you, anyway

~~

 
ART DOESN’T NEED TO FIGHT BUT IF IT HAD TO IT WOULD WIN

 
your baseball cap is
floating in the ocean you
said we could drive into past
the marshes where we both
grew up
like theresa duncan and
jeremy blake
on thanksgiving when
we’re both home
car parked hugging the atlantic
wind
the day a casino burned down
the day before my 16th birthday

death in these words but what is death
2007 never ended
and as they say
you can’t kill an idea
groups of them sing at the margins
tho individually, if you asked,
they would only laugh
pop a balloon with a knife

andrew was right when he said life is a plotless blob we pretend has a narrative arc
and when you mocked adam’s desire for a clean ending to the film about you
saying, ‘that’s so lowbrow,’
you were right to do that

~~

 
THE GREEN BUG WALKS DOWN MY PALM AND IT’S SPRING IN NEW YORK AGAIN

 
–I’ve lived in three: Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. In that order.
–Mmm.
–I graduated.

He smiles. I can tell he likes this. Americans love when you know not just what things are, but what things mean.