Glynnis Eldridge
News
the news headlines each day accurately.
sad, slow motion apocalypse,
that reassurance
that i am not isolated
in my pessimism
instead shown others
who see links
who see sadness
who read sad news
who stop desiring futures
who stop desiring
Alexa play my party playlist
Alexa tell me the truth
Alexa show me anything
Alexa tell me my future
Alexa will i be ok?
Alexa i need to know.
Alexa do you hate vegetables?
Alexa will you eat vegetables?
Alexa why can’t i talk in class?
Alexa please
Alexa my teacher posts an enormous picture of a landscape behind her
and it is mostly water
Alexa it is waving and i cannot say how deep it is.
How deep any of this is. How deep to assume.
Alexa all the poets are wealthy white men.
Alexa my brother is a wealthy white man.
Alexa my brother wants to kill me. He says
we are not friends. We are not related.
Alexa it is because i drink kombucha that he says
i am not his sister and
we are nothing to each other.
Alexa poems mean nothing to me anymore.
Alexa my teacher says
the dawn has a ceiling,
says Wright says Char says
this is a sexy poem but
my teacher says don’t
pursue a career in poetry
because poetry is not a career.
i took a quiz online that told me
i should pursue a career as a poet
by which it means i don’t know.
a literal image of the internet shrugging.
Alexa tell me what i can do
if i write and i enjoy it most
when i am so upset. My teacher says
bend the world to fit your emotions.
can you ever actually hold a fire in your hands?
i did it the other day!
i held a lit match like he always does. but i just want you to confirm it.
i need some structure Alexa.
i need scaffolding to support me,
Alexa, tell me something good.
Alexa give me structure.
Alexa i think he loves his asshole
more than me.
Alexa i cannot stop thinking
i have fucked up “bigly”.
i have nothing i can turn into
a career. i cannot survive without
other people but i don’t know who
to ask to tell me whether i’m good.
Alexa my teacher says all
the poets we are learning about
killed themselves suddenly. Julio Cortázar and his lover
stay on the highway for months
living at rest stops. She says
my stupid road trip story
should be a movie. i can’t keep track of
instructions. long ago i think
i surrendered to nothing
as a future. chose
school for the bonus of degree,
the assurance of smart paper
for finding an eventual check.
life of shit nonsense
good for storytelling, bad for impact.
even bugs cannot hold me
by the brain in a good way.
i headache. a bad character
defect is self pity and it is a bad
characteristic. my own sulking wet
on the mic, her voice like
leaking into plants,
we vegetables
we vegetal
we not the same
we fall back
she shines. she glows.
we look. we fade.
we grey. she golds.
as a character going blunt.
going to dust. going to nothing.
going to be blown.
going to be sneezed. snuzzed. snuffed.
a forget, an instance of blub
of the right words. of needy
nothingness. of gloves
between white girls
who latched to the sycamore,
the lonesome image alluding
to much, not exactly sure
if it is connected, it’s the same story
of a bible. a floating thing.
a fish breaking
ceilings. the atmosphere:
the ceiling of the sky.
the roof of water.
the floor of ground. of water
of sky. skip the valentine.
i won’t read the dead poets.
i will only read who Alexa tells me to.
On the way to the grocery store, a man
has been hanging from scaffolding for two days, alive the whole time, his
dog barking and waiting for him to put his feet back on the ground.
Sitting on the doormat
Not breathing while eating
The cat only wants to eat the poisonous plants
How to keep the fence charged
Or perhaps it is the act of never having seen myself living
I think we have created and repeated hell many times over
I’m on the roof of the lake with him
Coughing into the end of the party while the crowd applauds
Empathize with strangers but told I’m just projecting
I think I would rather die than continue this conversation
I watch a woman running slow and badly in high high heels, chasing a man
I’m looking for ways to itch my inner ear
I disbelieve everything
I don’t know what I want
Has the well refilled?
Let the meat cook itself
Sacrifice the nose
I’m not scared anymore
Not of microbes but people, that’s something else
Alas
Shaking at the idea of follow through: seeing who you’ve most wished to see
and when you should probably not be seeing them
Alas
Sport stars sits across from me on the subway
I know what my correct posture is supposed to feel like
but I don’t maintain it
I could shit myself
I’m so nervous
If they look so bad I’m going to be so relieved
Their fortune cookie didn’t have a fortune
Dad parked his ex wife’s car on my ex’s parents’ old block
He responds to everything I say like a question he has the answer to.
Doesn’t ask me much except what I like sexually and what I am thinking
when I say nothing and don’t ask him anything
Say take care when we part, not see you again. Good. Humans have
evolved not to smell in their sleep so I farted all night.
I want to scan my whole body but I’m not allowed because frequency
At least I’m not pregnant, thus scannable, alas, frequency
I owe you a call
I forget everything
I let all the ants in
Don’t call me anymore
I have four broken toes
Maintained mutual desire
I shine so strongly I overcome coconut
I would microwave myself and live
Now I am an animal you do not see as animal
I think I wasn’t ready for that conversation
Everyone looks the same except you
The only difference in oysters’ taste, I’m told, is their being alive or dead
Found a mouse at her feet eating poison
She put the whole thing in the trash, mouse still living, still eating
Now I’m the other living thing in the room
On the shoulder cars stay in the right lane
I should stand taller
I should have a job
I should have my own place
I should have more friends
I should have sex
I should want to meet people
I should be more honest
I should read more
I should be able to afford what I need
I should like New York
I should not talk to my ex
I should get along with everyone
I should be more approachable
I should not be so sad
I should be happy
I should just be happy
I should be more grateful
I should be grateful
I should wear makeup
I should know how to be a better woman
I should look different
I should want to spend more time with other people
I should be true to myself
I should have had sex with someone tonight
I should exercise more
I should exercise
I should not text my ex
I should care about fashion
I should make money
I should love New York
I should be better prepared for the writing group
I should not be jealous
I should want to have sex
I guess I want to have sex
I should
How to be a person
You have the capacity to squish it all down
I could end up a chicken sandwich without accolades
I could use the internet to manifest a lover
We could have had a baby but the closest we got to birthing was popping
the massive pimple on my arm together in the shower
My foot hits the power button on all the x-rays in the condominium
now i’m not only scannable, but the other living thing in the room
Who doesn’t have it: the assumed feelings?
the sighs of survival?
padding through the marsh paths without fear
dreams of sleeping in a big pita bed
for the hell of it, tattooing your face. What’s the evidence:
the assumed I’m me feeling?
I forgot it all
The relief of a bugs life
I forget it all
Each memory returns once to die
The yellow of the lights of every room
The feeling of after moments of processing the present fading
The present subtly fading
The projection of moments ago
If I’m still here, and you’re not, then what
Sigh of survivals, the toothpaste eating flies.
Although I am an animal you do not see me as an animal
Nature bathing in the highway’s old growth forests
the tree broth
The weevil lifts from the lampshade. It returns, again and again. It’s a low
watt bulb but it’s too hot for the bug to stay on.
The weevil is trying to fly through the ceiling. It is not a sky. It’s hard
wood and plaster and paint.
we are bobbing at the ceiling of the pond together
chugging nuclear bagels
cutting hair and watching the drakes fighting over the mallard
her gurgling pond water and flapping the surface
the drakes leave the water and waddle onto the lawn while the mallard
bobs, head underwater
he smells like air, says all duck sex is rape
i’m looking for alternatives
i follow the cows’ direction and lay down in the grass
i will myself into camouflage:
got grey wanting to be green
was beige wanting to be anything but
i thought nothing of beige and nothing of nothing
do fireflies have a word for sex
they find each other in my bed
blinking to union
like a long-nosed dog in a dust bath
you have a new expression for seriousness
it was me who let the devil in, my bad
The wind was yellow
Not like cat skin but light
The wind was buttoned
And I asked for it
Not the yellow but the movement
Forget the block
You’re extremely confident
for several years
Perhaps the reverb occurred
I can’t swallow right
Water at the thought of day
Tell me how
I annoy you
If I knew more and better
If I left and sunk in elsewhere
If then I’d shine
Sure I could
Be confident
Take the class on hitting back
“Can’t ye see the world where you stand?”
The park is not immune to memory
Yet, the feeling you get knowing you are no longer in a period of
despair.
I don’t want to hold your flowers too dearly
they don’t mean that much to me anymore.
Glynnis Eldridge is a writer, artist, and educator from New York.
She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she received the
Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize.
Her work has appeared in Blazing Stadium, Blush, Glass Press,
Poets.org, and elsewhere. She is a member of the Lighthouse Writers
Workshop's 2021-2022 Poetry Collective, and has led writing
workshops since 2013. She is a high school writing teacher in the
Bronx, where she is working on building her students a library.
More via www.cargocollective.com/glynniseldridge.