Life of the Party

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Life of the Party Page 6

by Olivia Gatwood


  You’re such a poet, she says. And I know this is true.

  I know that I am.

  But mostly, I just want to be unremarkable.

  THE LOVER AS CORN SYRUP

  There comes a time

  when you must explain

  to your friends

  why you stayed.

  I keep writing poems

  in which I compare

  the lover to something

  else as a way of answering

  this question, so here

  I am, naming the lover

  as the sweetest thing

  the mouth will ever know.

  Here I am calling the lover

  sugar’s blood, the reason

  behind everything I crave.

  Honey, you are something

  that morphs the teeth

  to a murder of sitting crows,

  that mothers ban from their children’s

  innocent lunch boxes,

  something in everything

  I consume, only I don’t

  know it until the rot creeps

  in and settles in my belly,

  until I am left holding my knees

  on the bathroom floor,

  massaging the cavity from my middle.

  Until I read the back of every box.

  THE SCHOLAR

  the house is heavy with sour burning fish / when i leave / my clothes will smell / of seared salmon / sulking men on the train / will tidy their backs / twist their necks / in my direction / assume my thighs used bait / you know the thing we learn in grade school / about cheap girls’ bodies / how they carry the sea / i make the train smell like gowanus / trash-river lady / all for you / you are back home writing a book / on the kitchen floor / told me this morning / you met someone else / she lives in europe / but you have more in common / like religion / your names / sound nice together / i ask for my things / you give me a garbage bag / i ask for my coat / you beg me to leave it / it smells like you / you say / the last time we made love / you asked me / if i was scared / i think you wanted me / to say yes / when we go to bed / all of the women scale the fire escape / perch on the rust / cackle and sing / you can tell how much he loves her / by how he sleeps / not at all / not at all / not at all

  ODE TO MY JEALOUSY

  You plague of desert locusts born sullen in my gut,

  blood-red betta eating its own tail, how I could describe

  you forever as a mob, how I could learn

  the name of every kind of wasp and point to you,

  but I know you, my emerald heart, my wreath

  of kelp, are something more timid than that—

  monstrous, yes, but defenseless, also—soft

  and sacred like the skin in the pit of my arm,

  how I flinch and scream when my lover pokes at you,

  calls you out, you, born from a mother I have not

  uncovered, you, evidence of this reliable pain,

  blood trickle from beneath my vest, you bigmouth

  party-crasher, all talk with a plush knuckle,

  you mirror made of warped wood, lying dormant

  while I win, I win, I win, I win, sometimes

  I dream of a surgeon, scooping you out

  and stitching me back up, combing my hair

  perfect over the scar, and my new smiling self

  emerging, how she feels so warm, when she

  hears her lover’s name in another girl’s mouth.

  THE LOVER AS APPETITE

  Gone.

  ODE TO MY FAVORITE MURDER

  My favorite murder

  is the one that makes me sleep

  in the living room, an open switchblade

  resting on a coaster.

  I dream of it against my neck

  and move it beneath my pillow.

  My favorite murder mutates

  each creak into a footstep,

  an echo of boots in the hallway.

  This house hiccups and a man

  has twelve hands, each one turning

  a doorknob. No, a window.

  No, he’ll come in through the skylight.

  I wanted to lock it last month but didn’t

  have a ladder. One act of laziness

  becomes the loophole into my bed.

  That’s how it usually happens

  in my favorite murders—a two-inch

  plastic knob left unturned and it all fractures

  into red. Of course, it wasn’t the window

  cracked open that caused it. We know that.

  But the detail matters, somehow.

  Now, I sweat the bed and fantasize

  about a breeze. My favorite murder is the one

  whose name I can’t stop saying at parties,

  whose phone call I stay awake for, whose quirks

  I hoard like tennis balls in my pockets.

  The movie I cast and direct.

  In line at the bank, the man behind me

  wears no socks with his boat shoes

  and auditions for the role of killer.

  In this scene, he follows me to my car.

  In this scene, he watches my lover

  and me have sex. He waits four nights

  to kill me. When I learned that rapists

  can be identified by the flesh under their victims’

  fingernails, I offered to scratch my boyfriend’s back.

  I don’t know if that method works here

  because I’m not alive to see it.

  I am hungry for a good story—a well-kept

  diary left behind, court transcripts

  and a mouthy witness. Maybe that’s why

  I’m writing this book.

  Melissa says poetry is just obsession.

  I don’t know when it happened,

  but one day the word favorite

  began to mean that which I am

  most terrified of. I have told so many men

  that they are my favorite.

  My favorite murders are the ones

  I can place my own body into as easy

  as an ad-lib, who sit on the shelf like volumes

  of an almost complete encyclopedia—

  all that’s missing is the section on my name.

  I AM ALMOST CERTAIN I COULD DISPOSE OF MYSELF & GET AWAY WITH IT

  take the burden

  off his hands.

  unless he loves

  the regimen

  i will do the burying.

  clean up after

  his messy project.

  if a girl can be found

  dead, clawing at the seams

  of a walk-in freezer

  or in a water tank

  on the roof of a hotel

  & have her death named

  intentional, by her own hand,

  then so can i.

  i can’t ask him to do it

  nicely, i can’t beg for no blood.

  but i can make a barter

  for my own removal.

  i’ve already rehearsed

  the gospel: leave me here

  & go get a snack.

  i’ll touch myself

  until i am my own

  fingerprint. you are nowhere.

  you are a man

  at the park eating a banana.

  i’m not trying to do him

  any favors, i’m just faithful

  to the way i’m found.

  edwin told me once

  that when the city<
br />
  workers of los angeles

  drained the pond in echo park,

  they found eight bodies

  at the bottom.

  i’ll go there, i think,

  after he is done.

  i’ll wrap myself

  in blue tarp, be like woolf

  with a stone in my pocket

  & no one will think twice.

  i always had a sadness to me,

  after all. now, i am more beautiful.

  THE LOVER AS A DREAM

  we are at a circus.

  we are not lovers anymore—

  this is somewhere in the aftermath

  of our loud & bloody affair

  & it is raining & there are mice

  everywhere, zigzagging across

  the carnival cement, panicking

  as the water grows around our feet,

  ankles, knees. they’re going to drown,

  i keep saying but she doesn’t respond,

  she wants to know why i’m wearing lipstick.

  who are you always dressing up for?

  they’re going to drown.

  who are you always dressing up for?

  they’re going to drown.

  i once heard the word conversation

  described as a progression of exchanges

  but there is no progress here

  so maybe i will instead compare this

  to the bullet drop—the idea that if you shoot

  a gun & drop a bullet from the same location

  they will hit the floor at the same time,

  hundreds of feet apart.

  we are born from the same city

  of worry & doubt & fear of loss

  but always end up so far

  from each other.

  she takes me to see the elephants

  & i notice that all of the animals

  have feeding tubes, bags collecting

  pus at the base of their stomachs,

  & i keep using the word inhumane.

  she wants to take a photo

  of the fat, gray beast who is dancing

  on its doughy hind legs

  for a crowd of leering tourists

  but when i give her my phone

  she digs through it, finds the evidence

  of my new, bright life,

  my new, bright lover.

  who is she?

  this is inhumane.

  who is she?

  this is inhumane.

  we met up to exchange something

  of hers i had—an artifact from a time

  we thought each other’s homes

  safe enough to leave our things—

  but whatever it was is not here

  anymore, the boil of her backbite

  is the only thing we hold together

  now & so i tell her it’s time for me

  to go & she agrees, she wants

  to stay anyway, she wants to see

  the grand finale, the elephant

  painting a picture with its nose,

  & so i leave her there amongst

  the sticky chaos, the sweet wound.

  it is still pouring, i am still

  heavy with the weight of living,

  there is a line of sunburnt

  people snaking towards the entrance

  & still, no one cares about the mice.

  MY MOTHER’S ADDENDUM

  every time my mother

  tells the story about the time

  a man tied her up with zip ties,

  she adds something new.

  last time it was advice.

  when a man holds

  a gun to your lower back,

  you give him a secret,

  you say, “this thing here

  is only for us,” & he is less

  likely to kill you.

  today, she adds a reflection.

  when it happened,

  i wasn’t afraid.

  it was familiar,

  like i had rehearsed it

  so many times in my mind

  that all i could think was

  this is exactly how i imagined it.

  BODY COUNT: 13

  with quotes from the Albuquerque Journal’s coverage of the murder of eleven black and brown women, predominately sex workers, and one fetus found in Albuquerque, New Mexico

  We don’t believe anyone

  is a throwaway

  just on the wrong side

  of the law

  that’s the hard part

  the wait

  there are no answers

  only the chase

  women that gather dust

  and then gone

  maybe it was a person

  who thought they were doing the Lord’s work

  murdering prostitutes

  addicts and burying them

  in a shallow grave

  maybe they believed

  it was an act of service killing

  these girls who

  shared a common bond

  looked out for each other

  in the war zone

  soft desert runaways

  [how many bodies

  need to be dug up

  before the Albuquerque Police Department

  is comfortable

  with the words Serial Killer]

  we found two more foot bones

  we will continue to search until

  we’re not finding any more

  had we been finding fresh bodies

  bodies bodies bodies

  bodies bodies bodies

  I’d be much more concerned

  it’s tough work

  in missing persons cases

  involving women

  with criminal lifestyles

  they don’t want to be found

  imagine twelve white girls go missing

  imagine their bodies found

  before they turn to bone

  imagine their bodies found

  how do I write

  a found poem

  when there is nothing

  to be found

  how can i tell you

  about a girl

  who is defined

  by her absence

  imagine their bodies

  no one cared

  whether she ever showed up

  [except for those who loved her

  who knew she was more than her rap sheet

  there are so many more missing

  and they’re out there somewhere

  maybe they are out there

  on that mesa

  maybe it’s time

  to take a second look.]

  EUBANK & CANDELARIA, 2009

  Some things are more a feeling

  than they are a memory.

  My memory is that I was peering

  over something, watching.

  *

  A man who now I might call a boy,

  but back then, a man,

  bragged about the bodies

  of women he left on the mesa.

  *

  I have heard men refer to the number of women

  they’ve slept with as their body count.

  *

  In 2009, out by the volcanoes,

  a mass grave, eleven women and one fetus,

  found buried in a row like white lines

>   in a parking lot.

  *

  Adri taught me that when a man pulls up and asks

  if you need a ride you always say yes.

  You’re always going somewhere

  even if you’re not.

  *

  The papers named him

  the West Mesa Bone Collector

  and named the girls transient

  and troubled and missing for years.

  *

  It was my boyfriend’s house.

  We never went outside

  but I wanted to.

  I used to look out the window

  and miss my dad.

  I used to wake up in pain

  and ask him what he did to me

  in my sleep.

  *

  He disposed of the bodies

  of sex workers and no one thought

  to look until they waned into an outline,

  until a dog walker found a girl’s femur

  in the dirt.

  *

  We didn’t stop getting in cars.

  We still needed a ride.

  Still needed air-conditioning.

  Still thought that saying no

  caused more trouble than anything else.

  *

  He was never caught.

  *

  One suspect was found stalking

  sex workers with a rope and electrical

  tape in his front seat.

  One suspect strangled a girl to death

  and was then shot by her boyfriend.

  What is justice when every girl

  in the story is either dead or wanted dead?

  What is justice when the man didn’t do

  the it we are talking about

  but did something like it and buried

  her somewhere else?

  *

  I always thought it was a misnomer—

  collector—decorative and terrifying,

  but inaccurate. The name

  made it sound like a hobby,

  like inside his house he

  might have a China cabinet

  filled with teeth.

  [the first call came the day before christmas. i was combing at the green pins of a douglas fir in a holiday tree lot. i wasn’t raised with tradition but i lived with a boyfriend now & we were set on playing house the right way. my father says that the babysitter, who now has a name we use instead, came in to the hospital where my mother worked & held out her forearm, pointed to the blackening cyst, the dark bloom of a needle gone awry. my mother dressed it in clean gauze & asked the right questions. she once taught me about motivational interviewing—how, if done properly, a person will tell you all of the things you didn’t ask but wanted to know. in this case, it was about the babysitter’s father. about her body. about him, awake in her room each night, asking her to keep a secret. about his hand in the hinges of a door, a dog’s mouth clamped on his right calf. the ways we cooed at his wounds, named her rage as brief & uniform as a training bra. never asked why his hands gripped a hinge in the first place.]

 

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