by Eric Raanan Fischman
In this one, I’m talking
to me. You can listen
if you want, but I am only
telling me what I need to hear.
You’re good-looking! You are
desire! You will live to see.
The things you are asking are not
hidden. Pain is the body saying no
or is it? Pain is the body saying.
Listen if you want, but I am
only talking to me. I love you.
You’re beautiful. I want to live
with you inside this mirror.
You are no closed mess, you are no
uninterrogable system. You can do
what’s you and you already have
this. I need you. Constantly.
You miracle. You bliss.
Abdominal discord. Lung breach.
Uncertainty is not barren. You
aren’t dying it’s only another
mystery, pain is the body’s way
of saying listen if you want but
I’m still only talking to me.
The gurgles you hear are
your spleen singing. It’s okay
to feel vulnerable. I’m holding you.
You can listen, if you want.
To your feather heart. To the
sinkholes in your belly. Your
ribcage animal. They are only
telling you what you need to hear,
that all bodies are future ruins, that
some things are poison but loneliness
is not one of them, that this
is a temporary gift.
Your arms are divining rods,
and other people are water.
I miss you. Come back to me. I want
to nestle inside your skin. I don’t care
what you think you are guilty of.
Everything is imperfect, everything
is lovingly cracked. I give you
permission to forgive yourself.
You can listen, if you want.
Eric Raanan Fischman is an MFA graduate of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. He has taught free writing workshops in Nederland, Boulder, and Longmont, Colorado, and has had work in Bombay Gin, the Boulder Weekly, Suspect Press, and more, as well as in community fundraising anthologies from Punch Drunk Press and South Broadway Ghost Society. He curates the Boulder/Denver metro area poetry calendar at boulderpoetryscene.com and is a regular contributor to the BPS blog. His first book, “Mordy Gets Enlightened,” was published through The Little Door in 2017.