Katie Clark

"11 months after"

we sleep a foot apart in a twin bed. the inches feel damp.
they feel like water only still. stagnant. i am underneath
them. they get in my throat and my nose singes. someone
told me it’s something about saline levels, why it burns.
that the feeling is cells drawing in too much water and
bursting.

in the morning you say sorry for saying what you said and
it has to be okay so it is. if you want we can call the thing
by another name and forget, inevitable, but that won’t make
it not true or better. it’s not such a simple question.

the truth is i am but i’m not there yet. the truth is i don’t
know if there is a yet or a there and so maybe this is just
ordinary now. maybe i am treading water. maybe the fever
has gone cold for the time being and time is being slow.

i’m still trying to help february get its jeans back on, but it
won’t stop crying and it’s freezing outside. i keep saying
that march is not winter anymore but it doesn’t make it any
better or more true. the cold feels like her mouth did: i
didn’t ask for this either, but here we are.

when i was five a mirror fell on top of me and it scattered
across the floor. it was so wet: the blood and the glass and
the fear and the hands. i was afraid of my reflection for
years. she is the mirror now. her body is the falling and the
on top of me and it happens over and over and over again.
see?

sometimes my days are not like this. sometimes what
happened that night is not always. sometimes you make it
better or at least less loud. sometimes you don’t and that is
okay and not your fault. sometimes i feel like i’m made out
of spinning plates and all of the spinners are hungry.
sometimes i think the spinners may want to kiss me but
they’d put lipstick on me first, cover my eyes with coins
and lay me down. body trauma is body trauma, even on the
days i can cover my ears.

what i mean is i saw her on the sidewalk and i took two
coins out of my pocket and slipped them over my eyes.
what i mean is being alive is exhausting. what i mean is
sometimes i don’t want to be, but this doesn’t mean
anything more than that. i want to believe in all the things
you believe in and i want the believing to be simple but
today i traced my hand against the wet window of last year
and when i pulled away it wasn’t my hand anymore.

i am trying to empty myself of it. i am trying to turn this all
into art but some of it just isn’t pretty or important. here’s
to thinking this owes me anything. turns out some of it is
just rot and leftover breath. useless. make way for the cold.
there goes fate, there goes reason– wave goodbye, it
happened.

i want there to be a better ending so i write it myself. at five
the mirror never fell. at nineteen she never touched me. at
nineteen she never touched me. at nineteen she never
touched me. there, better.

what i really meant when i said better, or should’ve: it
happened. i’m alive anyway. some morning you roll over.
no more inches. we wake up. coffee with milk. slightly
burnt bagels. it’s okay and then it’s not and then it is again
for a while. this is the good ending.