JULIE MANNELL
The Rusty Toque | Issue 12 | Poetry | June 30, 2017
I Want to Disappear MyselfThere is a difference between dying and disappearing. I would like to disappear myself. No funeral for who I was. No mess—no rotting of flesh in buried boxes. No birth; no friends; no light reflecting off that skin, this hair. No sun and no moon smiling down. No witnesses to occupying a state, a form—material, historical, bone & thought erased. I want to black hole myself. Debase this chain of events that conspired to render me animate & relevant. Refund time & turn myself in. Break ties with planetary weather. I want to nominate myself to exist outside the nominal, to blanket myself in blankness, turn down the invitation. Explode the laws of consequence. Trigger the universe into a reverse big bang. We had Sex and a Few Good Conversations Before you Bounced
Alprozalam breakup—anti-spectacular ending to touring mouths like doors to ugly rooms. I will still think of you when sunlight copulates with glass to breed rainbow notches on white surfaces—shallow projections. You can ruin things just by standing in front of them. I will still think of you when I encounter mix tapes, Paul Dano, plastic rhinos, when I am summoned to kneel, as in prayer, charming a bedside eucharist. I have memory and it’s itchy. I have trauma proposing to my chest. Natural match. I still dramatized your clock heartbeat later with my head on the pillowcase and a phone catalogue of bad ideas. I’m sorry for your father. You are sorry for my bad men before you. I wanted to kiss you most when you were failing. For a month you were a drummer in my stomach. For a month you were an idea I had before you. We ought to be kind to each other at parties. We have friends. We are two people with a story. You held my hand and we tried our hand at that for a while. It hurt —though not as bad as others and I do miss you. It hurt like an inside joke I alone am inside of. You finally stood up to blowjobs. I am good at blowjobs. I’m not bad but sensitive. When I see you I’ll always see you naked because we invented this body curse. When you bailed I learned you are an event that is happening. Not permanent like love. Permanent like the sun prisms through glass, forcing rainbows on white surfaces. Permanent like refraction—witnessing each other as a law of physics but only if our eyes are open and we are, after all, imperfect with these always-closing eyes. The Ghost of Madison MoonA little like Christmas Eve old friend discovering old friend discovering this is the secret beneath the zipper here is the thong around my ankles; here is the couch my mother inherited from my grandmother inside the basement my father built A little like Christmas greeting a caroler/familiar neighbor still this is so unfamiliar even foreseeable words, invitations, Come in: it is nice in here it is warm After a lifetime of cities imposing their kink, how should I have guessed you wanted it the same To make love in the tradition of small town Catholics: two boards with eyes one planking on the other Sexy can be simple pretending we were born without butt holes these salient hands & spectacular fingernails Madison Moon closing the door You are the closed door I am in the feeling in the know of the close A little like New Years Eve new snapchat filters: photograph on photograph—the (high)-tech #scrapbook play by play/moment by moment notification for conscious documentation of you do not want me around Awkward you awkward like a used condom in my purse not the trash—never there, where our mothers might find it Awkward like an iphone stricken with anamnesis: textual stimulation with Banquo, loyal tone vamoose, or up late waiting on Samuel’s prophesy—awkward Awkward like me looking in the mirror, leaning in to kiss Illusion: myself as recollection of you reincarnated, resurrected, a projection: The Ghost of Madison Moon |
JULIE MANNELL is a writer of poetry, fiction and essays, and an editor at Matrix Magazine. She is the recipient of the HarperCollins/Constance Rooke Scholarship, the Mona Adilman Poetry Prize, and the Lionel Shapiro Award for Excellency in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in the National Post, Toronto Star, and Huffington Post, among others. At the moment, Mannell is an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in English Literature and Philosophy. Originally from Fonthill, Ontario, she currently splits her time between Montreal and Toronto. She was recently named one of the Top 30 Poets Under 30.
