After After

I have thought many times about what I shall do after I write this. But now is still before, and this is before, but having said such, it is also after. I have spent many months thinking about before, before before, when things were better. Except things were never better: I was only blinder, before I knew, before I knew that I didn't know, before I knew what I now know after. I spend equally as much time imaging after after. I had a dream: I have a dream about after, after I can see whole faces again, after black faces and brown faces aren't held after white faces, after my faces face each other and I face each of them after my before is after, when I am after my before. I wonder about the weight of holding hands, how light they felt before, though before before when holding his hand was like holding a mine somewhere beneath our feet, set there some time before, and maybe it would detonate after we set upon if if we didn't hold still. And after after, I wonder how heavy our hands will be, when I haven't held a hand in so long, not since before. I remember before when I ate better and ran often and lost thirty pounds. And I think often after before when I gained back forty and I wonder now what I'll wear after after when people see more than my upper torso, since my shoulders fit about as well in my shirts after as before even if the bottom seams ride up my stomach after I switched to only elastic waistbands before. There is too much before to be mindful of what was before before, and I know there is too little after after to be certain of what will still exist after what happened before and after what killed before kills even more even after who was here before is replaced with the person after him. I have spent too much time staring after after, ignoring before before, and I commit, I cannot linger, must admit there is no after after when what I am, where I am, when I am is neither before nor after but now, and now, after before but still before after, I have neither before nor after to look for.

“After After” is after a poem in Jameson Fitzpatrick’s book Mr. & called “The Genius of Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With,” which is itself after a paragraph in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. Even poems, not only poets, can have their own lineage.

Smells Like Teen Syrup

When the suds ran red against my forefinger and thumb
I dropped the sponge and inspected the dishes
for any crimson stains
before I rinsed my hands and tended
to my cut. I remembered
how many times I had stood at this sink
with a sponge in one hand, a knife
gripped in the other, its silver steel
glistening
in the fluorescent light
like a moonbeam, a dreamscape
a promise for release—let the blood
drain like dirty water
let it swirl and puddle
toward its inevitable end
How many times
did I pull away the knife
set it aside, soapy and smirking
at my own weakness, fearing
the pain, the tear, the scars
I’d have to hide. Was it shame
that became my shield?

a remembrance of things past

Sometimes I remember
what it was like to smile
to feel the sunlight on my skin
that warmth, was it your hand
on mine that made me simmer
inside, made the worms create
cocoons to emerge as butterflies

Sometimes I remember
how it felt to feel the rain
splatter on my lips, quench
the thirst of arid summers
feel the specks of sand
clump between my toes
like a second flesh, to see
rainbows cut across the sky
a tapestry of endless colors

Sometimes I remember
the echoes of your voice
and mine, that laughter
after a well-told joke
a casual smile, splashing
rain, was it your laughter
from the lungs, from the stomach
to my unbeating, broken heart

Almost a Year in a Day

It’s coming a year since then
those days almost 365 before when
I crawled into death and found myself again
But it won’t end there—
it never will.
Then it’ll be a year since I started counseling
and a year since I got out
in May—a year since LeaderShape
when I learned the importance of vision
when I made a new family and learned how to see
a year after D.C.—I met two senators
in just as many days
and decided I want their desks to be mine.
It’ll be a year since we reconnected
since we jokingly said we should get married
but meant it all too seriously
a year since we fell in love unwillingly
since we finally admitted “I love you”
nearly another year after we met
and then, my god, it’ll be two years to the day
February 11, 2013
two years and I’m still sitting in my seat
waiting for class to begin
seeing straight to my death
and signing my obituary
afraid what I’ll feel like a year to the day
afraid what I’ll feel like in ten.

Yesterday

An imagined past
returned to
in the belief that
things were better then
and we could recreate them
by recreating
where we came from
and where we’re going
and how to improve
to live better
and return to
where we want to be

Excerpted from Cold White Snow