After The Abortion, an Older White Planned Parenthood Volunteer Asks If My Husband Is Here & Squeezes My Thigh and Says, “You Made The Right Decision,” and Then “Look What Could Happen If Trump Were President, I Mean, You Might Not Even Be Here.”
What else could I say except I agree with you really am bulldozed
with grief
my strength a whistle in this cold parabola everything an arc nemesis all of
my self a bowl
Instead I said yes he is here I mean my fiance I know I made the right decision of course he is okay we already agreed on this plan i mean look what could happen she says Hillary is our only option I say I know Look I haven’t told anyone this I am quitting my job she says my god I think I
understand your geography no not really I mean I’m leaving my good god government job I work for the governor she says are you running I say sort of I mean I’m going to work for Hillary
for America because we’re looking at a critical fault otherwise
and I know they need me they told me they need
my colloquial criticalities my totalizing abnormalities my compounds and
constructs of trajectory this is the only how I know to be had I belong to the
people but not your people I mean
I’m saying my people you wouldn’t understand this I’m
stealthy and svelte I can counter-swell any tide I am prepared
she holds my hands says thank you you must know that it matters
all of it matters
in the bed next to me a woman solid with anguish and sleep is ruby with
the wash of bleeding out and no one is tending i look down at myself, curried
with the same deep pink realize no one is tending in the taxi cab my
husband i mean fiance holds my hands his fingers all lead a dying
creek at the pitch of a sword he says i’m okay when you’re okay you
have to be okay remember they’re waiting on you for days i slept like this
my open submission to the cosmic opacities of time my
body shedding its just-built mouth he lies awake meters between us
steady documenting a decay my black studies professor said
what are you here for if you’re not willing to die for it I Get it
I’m skunked with the fear of what I’m willing to kill for it where do I
file this nuance to whom do I spare this complaint
When I woke he’d been fed watered wanted for
realized he didn’t need my indecision or his inability to travel time
or the bottomless glamor of conquering the unknown I know now
the octane faults of our ontological duties the war between becoming
and the formal unbecoming of being called and they said they needed me they
did so I went we bellied the hole I did what my mother asked of me
stepped into the heavy quilt of her ill drawn life I did my fucking
job I did what I was told in the end all my chemistry a performance of
gratitude all my insides turned purple with practical storms on election
night I flipped from
channel to channel neurosis in practice as
weighted predictions balance the draw I think no oh please
don’t
you know what I’ve bled for this in the distance a lone
voice is soprano with cheer and the silence
settles in succeeds with bare platitudes
I swear my love I did my best I worked with what I know I tilled
I paved I foraged labored a land
got us some growth settled my currents left all of us
famished bloody hungry at war