Fear of Furniture
We may remember how, in childhood, adults were first
able to look right through us, and into us, and
what an accomplishment it was when we, in fear and
trembling, could tell our first lie, and make, for
ourselves, the discovery that we are irredeemably
alone in certain respects, and know that within
the territory of ourselves, there can only be footprints.
- R. D. Laing, The Divided Self
We had it. Again. That fear of furniture is branding
thighs like the old milk
crate chairs by my single bed.
Loaned this, gathered that, never bought, loved
What we haven't abandoned into distant memories
in our smiling childhood photos.
I would not say six years ago to unsettling comfort
I will
Now to familiar red flannel sheets. This is your
life. and mine.
The lines were drawn with a push, not a fall,
no, we were lonely before.
Fearing sitting rooms and investing in sticks and
cushions and our solitary lives expecting
More, waiting for the show to start blunders
filled the spaces between with hands and tongues
I still sigh, always turning tummy to loneliness,
slide
Try to make dinner in the microwave and eat seated
staring as if the swell doesn't
Toss blankets over my head and I won't fill again
With depression in arms sucking in to much of
your discarded breath, No
I will pull skyward, a forced laugh,
And not pretend tattered string could have been
a couch
Or that the heart could rest.
If we are to have these sticks, bang ours together,
make fire.
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