Boys
Ask me
Why I can’t cook
And keep a house
And I tell them
My mother
Spent my childhood
Teaching me
What it meant
To be a bigger
Man than
Even they
Learned to be

They said our 20s were supposed to be easy
They never said that i would have to
Count backwards from one hundred to
Curb a breakdown
They said sedation will calm you
Down
But no one ever considered
That my neuroticism is what gave
Me my power to write

No one prepared me for the nights
I dont remember
For the car accidents that happened
But never really happened
The accidents that only existed as scars
On my car
That my splintered mirrors
Only showed a fraction of my illness

I was never supposed to be the person
To leave the party early
Because there was an anomaly in the wallpaper
I was unable to ignore

No one prepares you for the enemies
You make of yourself
Or the holes in your memory
Where your dignity leaks out

I never knew I could tell the time
By counting my tears on my tile floor
And that  springs of my
Bed would twang the sad anthem id never sing

Because i was bloated with
The probability that
My anxiety was
Scrawled on my skin
That my anguish was apparent
And my life floated in a glass
Half empty
And ever-transparent

I believed
No one would want to be with
Someone with so much baggage
I had to check in in order to get on a plane

Ive spent my 20s on the verge of
Implosion
I was never meant to
Crave sterility
And the absence of emotion

What if my mispoken words
Were perfectly aligned
With the trajectory of my life
And that I was meant to
Teach people
Through this story
That even the
“Wrong words come
Out right”

They told me that writing
Triggers catharsis
That words would help me
Make peace with everything
I was
And wasn’t

I tried so hard
To write what I felt
But the irony became that
No words suffice to articulate
My sadness;

This weight speaks
A different
Language
No one can understand

The only
Time I learned
Of your sadness
I read it like
Braille
On your body
It was
Knitted in
Your muscles
Carved into
Your face
Woven into
Your hands
And it made me
Sad to think
That our
Unseen horrors
Like
Silence
And loss
Are such palpable
Afflictions
Our bodies
Bear

–learning how to heal myself, Sarah Gray Isenberg

July 2016

Grief is born in the monotony.
It reminds you of its presence every time you
Look at a light switch or
the fridge door
or the grout between
the cold tiles
because these things
were the first to
witness your storm
your hurricane
The tears
That burned the inner
Areas
Of your thighs
Before leaving small
Pools on the
Condo floor
No.
That doorknob will
Never be just a
Doorknob
Again.
You see,
It was the last thing I
Touched
Before I stumbled
Into my
Room and pried
Myself from the floor that
Held me.
It was then I realized
8 years was just 8 years,
And those beautiful
Moments were ones you wouldn’t
Miss.
It was all I could do
To soak my grief
In the threads of
The sheets
To weave a tapestry
Of my sorrow on
My twin bed.
Not one that I owned
Just one that I borrowed
And for so long
After
I apologized
For staining the frame with
My anguish
For burying my memories
In its springs
And my doubts
In its hinges
That’s where I left
Everything
On the 1sr of August.
All those
aches that gnawed
at my bones
and thrashed skin
and stripped my eyes
Dry
till they pulsed bloodshot
Orbs in my head
Pivoting, pivoting
Till they
Closed
Exhausted and weary
From struggle
oh honey bird,
At times like these
Remember,
The monotony has
Made you.
You are a polished
Stone
Smoothed by
Turbulence.

Mama told me
Beauty laps at my skin
And youth is wasted
By my ingratitude

But I was too tired to see it
I was 23
Now I'm 25
And I've died a thousand times
Over
By this point.

That night
I blew the candles
Like I was supposed to
Greeted the guests
Shared cake with them
Under a sky so
Swollen with stars
So burgeoning with promise

Then I walked them to their cars
Gave hugs and thanks
Like I was taught.

But mama never taught me
That niceties are only
Skin-deep
That happiness
Is as cosmetic as my cover girl concealer
And I can apply it to
My skin to
Cover the blemishes of
My pain
Carved between my
Freckles
Scars that
Hang under my eyes like
Eternal exhaustion.

Yes,
I was alright that night.
Alright, being relative
Which just
Meant that I was suffering
A little less.

A term that meant
That a Pabst and some
Hard lemonade and
My birthday champagne
Would ease.

It meant that my inhibitions
Would soften my
Anguish
And my sharp edges
Would rounded
Into lovely
Curves
Soft enough for a man
To touch.

And I did.
I let that man touch me
On my happy day.

For so long I have
Trivialized my own
Pain, pretending it
Didn’t exist
Burying it into
My darkest recesses
Hiding it in my mattress
And under my pillows.

You see,
I have built walls
Even too high for me
To climb.
So I sat there
On my birthday
With the candles
And the lights
All turning, turning
Red cups luring
Us into a suspended
Stupor.
All bellies bloated with
Good company.

Ah, how nice it was.

That night
I watched
My life through
The window
Outside
Like I could see
Happiness
Painted on my
Face
While inquietude
Sat in my
Chest
Strangling my
Progress
The sadness
Plaguing the
Recesses of my
Mind

I grieved:
“I’ve made it so
Far,
So please
Don’t go back now.”

I inhaled
Deeply
And allowed myself
To be drowned by my own
Breath,
And I blew.
And I said
Happy birthday to me.

The night he told me
He was 25
And had to get married
To someone other
Than me
We were sitting
In a Home Depot
Parking lot
At 9 pm
And the street lamps
Burned
Above us
In their
Usual neon haze
And the moon
Silhouetted
Our faces on
The car windows
And the breeze
Turned leaves
Over and over
In its soft palms
And I thought
How cruel
Of the world
To continue
On so ceaselessly
As my love
Dissolved
Into memory

–pondering the dissolution of my interracial love, Sarah Gray Isenberg

June 2016

I wore my past
Like a pallid memoir

Anguish carved
Into the corners of my
Eyes

And the creases
Of my forehead
Are etched
in a Reckless cursive

And their words
Read as a letter
To the ingénue
Lover I used to
Be

"Girls ask me
Why they haven’t seen
Me shower
But a few times
And I say my body
Is itself
When i let it be
Their discrete implication
that a woman’s
Body
Is only valuable
When it is
Starched
And disinfected
When the sheaths
Of hair and oils
Are stripped from
The skin
Leaving it bare
And defenseless
But I guess it makes
Sense
Since we have been
Taught
That we are only
Precious
If we are vulnerable

I have been the
Writer of
This melancholic narrative
Authored from an
Illness
I am not proud to
Bear

But it is a testament
To the threads of my resilience
Forged out of
Steel
That I have sewn my limbs
back
To my body with
All those days
I
Fell apart

I am ready to
Welcome the angst
Of starting over
I am ready to invite the
Silence
Back in
Like that perfect moment
Between the
Lightening and thunder
A moment so impenetrable
and void of
Sound

I’m ready for that absence
And I am ready to stop shaming
Myself for my sadness