Let That Shit Go

Two days after he raped me, I went to yoga.

In the middle of the day, 14th street, day off my corporate job.

I expected to be forced

out

by outbursts of laughter because I am too cynical – too smart, really,

for layman philosophy and also because

my body wasn’t mine.

I couldn’t recognize it. Looking in the full body mirror in my roommate’s bedroom I matched my motions to the motions of the person against me, unconvinced.

The forty-eight hours prior I had spent walking through. Were the lines somewhat blurred? Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe instead of freezing in my catatonic terror I should have

Maybe when the next morning he said I hope you didn’t have nightmares that was

The ends never tied together.

At the yoga studio, I lay on my back and stretched those newly unfamiliar joints and tendons.

The yogi wasn’t much of a talker. All she said was,

“One thing they taught us in training was,

You gotta let that shit go”

And that was really fucking profound, because

until that moment, in those 48 hours I had accumulated a heavy stack of excuses for him

that he couldn’t bother to even make for himself. I was pretending the pieces would somehow

fit.

I was planning on carrying around that stack of excuses

until it broke me, vertebra by vertebra.

Let that shit go.

I knew why the ends didn’t tie together.

It was because the lines are perfectly clear, because

I had no part in what he did and what he did was not my fault and what he did was wrong.

I can choose what to do with the heavy stack, turn it over to the police or write a dissertation or burn it,

or turn it into something of a poem.

But it has to go.

And it didn’t happen the same second, or

the same month really

but moment by moment, my cheeks and lips, my arms and calves,

my thighs

my pelvic bone

started to feel mine again, attached

to my brain, attached

to my soul.

The Words

My words dry me
up. They are

matchsticks I light,
more than once I touched them with the wet
tip of my tongue to smother the
flame, only to swallow
them, still burning.

Accidental fire eater. And for the duration of the flame, I am
a firefly.

(The last time I saw one I was with you, at Princeton.
Glowing in the dark humid air, their electrical
firefly bodies. Pre-storm.
...


I swallow them
up. It's no accident.

Unspoken, my burning words are
an incomplete circle.

A resolution that may exist
but remains undiscovered, like
that one time you lost your forgiveness for
me through a hole in your
coat's pocket.

In the Alphabet City,
a woman is burning alive.
With my glowing bones cracking burns every
last page,
every stop sign,
every ending so you'll never
have a trace of peace.

десет пъти жив

учителката ми по математика от прогимназията е починала вчера. изключителен човек. и беше млада, сигурно нямаше 50. и умна. търпелива. надъхваща. даде ми любовта към науката, но и към труда. хъс.

спомням си, когато загубихме П. и си казах. това да ти е за урок. да вдъхваш живот, не да го крадеш.

и когато се изплашихме за майка ми. и си казах. имаш възможности, но имаш и отговорности. трябва да имаш приоритети.

във втори курс ходих в някакъв фризьорски салон в града до колежа - богаташки град, повечето съпруги не работят, не им се налага. на долния етаж на салона сме само аз и една жена на средна възраст. тя разказва за депресията си, която била примесена с тревожност. и как дъщеря й имала известен приятел. как дъщеря й била толкова добра, че продала шала си на Ермес за благотворителна кауза. после се обръща към мен, и ме пита коя съм и откъде съм. и й казвам, от българия, уча в колежа. реакцията й: "ти си голяма късметлийка!! от българия?! на стипендия?!!?"
нищо не казах, разбира се. но тогава си помислих, надали аз съм късметлийката. може би просто съм умна. може би бачкам здраво. може би съм надъхана. това късмет ли е?

и сега, след две години, и с дипломата в ръце, ми е ясно какъв ми е късметът. родила съм се в семейство, където да уча за изпити се смята за инвестиция, не за разход. никой не ми държи сметка колко езика уча, къде си влагам времето. и когато нямахме пари, майка ми винаги казваше - за уроци пари има. и дори когато не сме съгласни едни с други, усещам подкрепата им, вярата им. това е лукс. че сме живи и заедно е лукс. че мога да помагам вкъщи - дори като просто не бивам тежест. че им казах, че ще кандидатствам в САЩ, и ме оставиха да се опитам - дори да значеше, че ще сгреша жестоко. че на 23 съм имала много шансове, единствено защото съм се родила в семейство, където да си вироглав се смята за добродетел.

защото всичките тези хора - учители, приятели, родители, са ме възпитали на труд. на хъс. на вяра. моите умения, стремежи, и надежди, са просто комбинация на тяхната отдаденост, на техните усилия.

и никога не съм била по-благодарна и смирена.

Time famine

You're probably married, maybe a kid
or two. Not very shy.
Your eyes transfixed
upon me, cutting
the distance into atoms.

It's 3am and I am walking home, heels
in my left hand, hair reeking of
smoke. They really should stop letting
people smoke at bars but. That,
too, feels like home.

As does the asphalt under my
toes, still warm from a
periwinkle sun.

As do the steel street lamps, the
stray cats.
Constants in the dying
town where I was born, the
only place where
I know how to find peace.
And I’m leaving tomorrow.

You're on your balcony, looking down
at me, a total stranger.
I gaze at you. My feet sink into the warm ground.
We say nothing.
Your cigarette burns your shirt.
You let it burn.

I am a theorist of beginnings.

You’re probably 25,
got your bachelor's in the capital.
Didn't like the city much, met a girl.
Came back here.

I'm barely 22, still
in transit.

An anxious engineer of endings.

In this extended fraction of a moment,
we are each other's torture, the lives
we won't get to live.

Beyond this second, bent like
a cat's spine,
the distance extends to infinity.

A woman's voice calls
your name. You go back inside.

I walk back home.

Ruse, Bulgaria -- Boston, MA

Easter

I learned God doesn't exist before some children
learned about Santa Claus.

Matter-of-factly, my mother explained
rain
was science and Christ
was a story.
At 5, there was no room for nuance, a
baptism into skepticism.

It's a family tradition, she
told me,
atheism, the way Sunday service
is tradition for our neighbors,
we are rational
and they pray before dinner.

My great-grandmother, the small-
scale rebel, was banned 
from the church. When her
friend died, the priest still would
not let her in. 
So she screamed 
and she screamed
and she banged on the doors
and she caused this great scene
till he did.

Easter is a pagan ritual, my mother
continues. The painted eggs are
on the counter, drying,
pagan, the sweet bread, pagan.

She takes the reddest egg,
and with it draws
the Holy Cross
on my forehead.

4/09/2015

The Turn

The magician's assistant is

here, cut in three. 

I am the famed magician.

I am the one you came to see. 

This is my first and only show.

The rumors move fast and I move slow. 

I don't try to compete with time.

My tricks are real and I don't lie.  

Here is the greatest trick I know: 

What you came to see.

My assistant cut in three.

Be a good sport and 

volunteer. 

And don't worry about any 

piercing pain.

And don't dream about any 

artistic fame.

As far as I know you are just a prop.

And these people out there,

they are rooting you drop. 

The touch of 

death is nice and soft.

Volunteer. 

Be a good sport.

Here's the greatest truth I know:

My tricks are real and my 

magic frail.

The lady that I cut in three

will never be.

3/30/2015

graduation

I will have my own
window
facing a brick wall facing
a violent street interlaced ambulances and fire chiefs yelling and reporters
telling the rest of the world how new york city
woke up this
morning
coughing up infectious smog
barely speaking with the exhaust
voice of a chain smoker
interview me, I'll tell you all about the real estate market
the real
estate market, this place better be the best there ever was or how else could you justify
people renting out their
closets on 14th street
a drag queen says to me, this dress, this
dress is either louis vuitton or you found it in the trash behind a thrift store,
make a wild guess I say
I see her sleeping in front of a grocery store the next weekend
and I buy her a pretzel.