Mobile/Stabile - I don’t speak French

Main two types of mainly 3D artist
Alexander “sandy” Calder

Mobile - is a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive"

If you had one of these above your crib to muse over as you drifted to dreamland, you have Sandy to thank.

Stabile-  following the style of the name mobile, is a sculpture that is unmovable

Both are French words I have trouble saying


I am becoming or was becoming paralyzed from my feet up
(they still haven’t decided which,
feel free to laugh at that)

Feel free to laugh at all of it, I do

I have complications from unbeknownst year long scarlet fever that turned into rheumatic fever that turned into julian Barre to thank for that.

There is no cure, so I’m using condescension.
I call it Julian Barre because “Gee YAWN BERET” is just so **** hard to eek out.
And
It requires more pomp than it deserves

Okay it’s part condescension and part more French words I can’t quite say.

It’s sort of like the opposite of when I try to say  “petit” pwessON” to be cute, I mean to say Little Fish to address my partner:

But instead say “petit pwazOne” which means
little Poison

And at my new job I am the manager-in-training.

In French it is

“Responsable en formation”

Or as I would say,
Responsible information.

However, I was not responsible in gathering my information.

During my interview, I said masseuse.

Turns out that is heavily connotated and maybe even denotated as a *** word.

I asked if it was the French ending

He said, “No, it’s the happy ending”

Maybe French is only **** because of how much is escapes me.

The opposite reason is why death was never **** to me
because of how much I escaped it

Maybe death finds
Me
****

And Anyway I got the job
And a month later my boss gave to me a T-shirt that said
your table is ready

At first,
Instead of a massage table,
I thought it was a stretcher
And I laughed

I wonder what that means

“You could have died” “you almost died” “it’s a miracle you’re still here”

“we’re /glad/ you’re still here”

Are words I often hear from my doctors
who almost always meet with me pro bono because I am poor, but also interesting

Medically

But they are not words I hear from my mother

Those are the words she saves to give to her 90-something mother-in-law

I say 90-something not because I am careless or inattentive, but because my grandmother Adeline lied about her age so often in her youth, that both she and the government forgot her actual age

The words my mother gives to grandma J upset her.

She is tired of living

Asked all of us to pray for her death

Asked my brother in law to be “to help her get to heaven tonight”
Said “I know you can help me get to heaven tonight” presumably because he works for the cook county coroner's office.

He is a man so jaded that he sometimes can only laugh on the job when he sees particularly trite Chicago suicide notes:

To be fair, he’s not cruel
It is usually when it is something
Like
“you either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”

Anyway, it made him cry when old Addie asked that

and also if you are a prayer person,
please pray for her death,
I can’t bring myself to do it.

I

At night, I search for the wrench
I lift it off my nightstand
I lie down on the workbench
the cool weight held in my hand

what I must loosen first is my knee
lull myself to a state of repose
leg is a swollen trunk of a tree
placidity the pain soon outgrows

ache that is green
ache that is ivy,
ache that is wrapping
around me
entirely.

being disarming,
the way that a friend will--
in no way harming,
I pry up one tendril,

My ache and I have just locked eyes
I turn my bolt counter-clockwise

just one half turn.
making way t’ward release,
pain is adjourned
to finally find peace


II

And in the factory,
It seems I was wound too tightly
Deemed satisfactory
Now, I relieve pressure nightly

The bolt pushes in such a way
it leaves the metal bent
Relief is not given away
but instead it is lent

pain that is sharp
pain that goes squish,
pain that is swimming
around me
like fish.

The pain in my head
a pain bright white
Will surely spread
If not done right

My head and I sob, throb, and cry together
And then I finally sever the tether

spin one full revolution,
Though I know it's unwise,
Lets in nightmare pollution
Maybe last night’s reprise



III

At night, I will always search for the reasons
Why is it that bad things happen to good people
I lie down and lament each of the seasons
If it’s about church, I’m skewered on the steeple

Now plaguing me is my dear heart
O! Please don't think me frigid
It’s how to be, if you are smart
Walls that throbbed become rigid

want that is lace
want that is divine,
want that dissipates
completely
in time

Wincing at every twinge
Heart so hollow it awards me pain
Lace is fraying at the fringe
Meteor in my orbital plane

said it flutters and feels flighty
prescribed one spin righty tighty

Then, compact are the loves I hold,
Locked in my heart airtight
No space empty or left cold
I wish you all goodnight

LONG AGO,
            I     S P R A W L E D.
I WAS THE OCEAN FLOOR
            I WAS AN ASTRONAUT, A COSMONAUT
            Still impressive,
                               I am now
                               Harry Houdini
                               in the worlds'
                               smallest box

Less impressive,
I am covered in my own ****
which is soaking into the cracks between the linoleum tiles
in the ****** kitchen
of the ****** apartment
i live in
with my ****** ex boyfriend
(But he is not home)
  
Serenity, alone
It's rare
To feel love
From inside

Serenity, together
It's hard
To have help
from outside

An hour and a phone call later

A friend hoists you up and carries you
Mopping your floor
wiping your genitals
Tenderly, platonically
The way we hoped had already happened for the last time
A moment between you as a baby and you as a parent
Before you gained a real memory
But that moment is happening right now
But, somehow, your whole childhood is ahead of you still

I live with mental illness
Every day I am entangled
In this invisible war
Some days I come out victorious
Other days it's leaves me torn
Yet I put up the fight
No surrender, no retreat
I will never accept defeat
You see....
I may be mad completely
I know that I will never be freed
However I know with every fiber of my being
That life is truly beautiful
I do sometimes feel fulfilled
Incredibly strong willed
I have this fire burning inside
I will never turn from it
I will never hide
To this evil I will never abide
The war rages on
Battles lost but battles won
I know from the depths of my soul
I will continue to fight against it
I do want to grow old
That is one helleva miracle
That not many of us get to experience
Even when I'm feeling tired
Even when I'm feeling furious
And yes
Even when my thoughts turn delirious
I will still pick up my sword
And let the battles carry on
I'll fight everyday with all my might
I will not allow myself to lose my sight
Please come fight with me
I can show you how it's done
How you can fight thru it too
Because I know that you love me
And I most definitely love you
To ourselves we have to hold true
And war through the blue
The darkness is spreading fast
But we are the warriors who will outlast

I'm a broken piano
             missing keys..

But if doesn't matter what
            I lack I'll evolve
myself to play without
    
             the necessity of what
others use and make more of
            what i have rather

than what I don't and my symphony

           will be one to  astound
the sensibility of all who listen to it.