Who would I be? If I were, say, the opposite of me. Would I be someone stronger? Faster? Someone more apt to speak out in front of a crowd? Even more apt to speak up in front of my friends? Would I be the first one to a party, and the last to leave? Would I know how to cook an egg without having to call my mother? Would I actually buy eggs in the first place? I think I would be less afraid of what my doctor has to say every time she finishes my yearly check-up. If I were the opposite of me, I’d be able to make the appointment without a pre-phone-call thirty-minute pep talk.

when I am sad, I turn to the lilacs.
I know that plucking them from their trees
will **** them, but I cannot seem to care.
if I do not pluck them, it will **** me.

my hands shake as I pull the tiny
chromatic flowers to my face. I breathe in.
the smell reminds me of my mother’s.
I wish that these flowers were blue,
so I could love them even more.

you once told me that lilacs only
give off their sweetest odor when
they are dying, when someone has cut
them from their trees and made
a decorative bouquet for their kitchen
table out of them. the same goes for me.

I watch them as they wilt and I try to find
a way to feel guilty but I can’t, because last
night they helped me fall asleep and nothing
was sweeter than dreaming of you, lying
on a bed of lilac petals, the purple peeking out
from under your curls, you staring up at me
like I was the only star in your sky.

i read today that this world needs my compassion.

let me tell you now: this world does not need
anything from me. it wants everything.

i am drained of blood - the leach that is life,
gluttonous, letting my spare empathy run past
its jowls, down the side of my leg.
none left for myself. certainly none
left for you.

there has never been any room for me
in my own life. i’m certain of this now.

i dreamt last night a sickness spread among us.
the skies seemed to want us dead. the world had ceased
its turning and all fences had fallen down. the rooves
had blown off of all of your favorite record stores.
your tires were flat and there was nothing you could do
about it. see? i can play god, too. my heart stopped beating
at 2:16am and they put me back together in under two minutes
and thirteen seconds. they didn’t understand that i liked it better
the way things were before. where’s tommy? where’s tommy?
where’s tommy? it’s not a big deal, i guess, but i can’t pronounce
mommy. just could you make sure she’s here next time, please?

this is an erasure. all words were taken from J. Hoberman's article in the New York Times titled "A Restored ‘Passion of Joan of Arc’ Still a Transcendent Masterpiece" - some modified by me. 

ripe, a year after pictures came, the market had
lost fruitfulness, only its masterpieces lasted,
validated the heroine - the teenage resistance,
the late revival respected for its spectacle
of her interior.

the sneering accused played cruelty by ear.
the trial in all senses looks unparalleled 
in melodrama, emobodied anguish worthy
of a single tear, her devil the same as her outrage.

a slow frenzy. at times hysterically so.
disorientation turning a pirouette
to reflect water, or recoil quickly.
less kinetic. contemporary admirer 

of a rival rhythm, daringly deliberate.
off-balanced angles ending in sequence, 
a miracle of documentary. never fully shot.
reinforced by images as they are stronger

when the static is pleased. in the original
institution, however, the forebodings,
more intellectually racking, called "Joan"
sanctimonious: transcendent.

even the impressed could not resist
tweaking integrity, transparent stubbornness,
extremely favorable to performance.

it took some 500 years for the roman
catholic church to declare Joan a saint.

you know that tight feeling in your chest,
below the spot where your collarbones
meet, right behind your sternum?
it’s not seasonal. you feel it every day,
don’t you? it’s not seasonal if it ruins
your summer, too. it’s not seasonal if even
the vitamin D can’t cure it.