The following poem by Mauranda Men ’16 was published on the “Almost Five Quarterly” blog in the summer of 2014. The online literary magazine Five Quarterly was founded in 2012 by NA English teacher Vanessa Jimenez Gabb and co-creator Crissy Van Meter. Bravo, Mauranda! Keep writing!
Incomprehension
One of those poems.
Spell it out. Fine.
A relatively nondescript person
living a relatively unextraordinary life stares
at a completely blank page
hoping to understand and hoping for others’ reciprocation.
Watch him, watch her
almost give up. spend 366 seconds or maybe just a few more
tapping the keys but never depressing a letter.
Indecisive: flirting, ogling, murderously glaring, or cowering at
the constant cursor.
Okay, no.
New strategy. Don’t watch.
Listen to wilted sighs, nervous
taps of restless digits on black and gray, heavy
swallows, lonesome, involuntary murmurs. Cracking
neck and impatient chews of the lip.
Normal silence expresses enough. Calculated silence, phonic lexicon,
falls short.
Frustration.
Ordinariness discovers
conveying an unnamed anguish = nearly impossible.
Onomasts, how could this be overlooked….
Churn out a new word. Stat. Defined:
the multitasking mind’s malaise. Example:
hmmm. Perhaps best described
a copy-paste-print of all current circling contemplations.
1) He told the story of the one-legged soldier toy and the music box ballerina
that ended in the fire, reminding
me that one day that story would be mine
to tell my children. Leaning in, his joints crackling and his eyes
streaked with exhaustion, his strong hands rubbed mine until slumber settled.
Leaving, the IcyHot pressed into use on his shoulders, his aching palms. When
I think of lonely winter by the fireplace, I wish
to be small.
2) A pile of mail addressed to me. A post
on tumblr, effecting a surprising internal tumult. People would ask, so
prepare an answer. On college.
My question: to be or not to be
-glad that
when I think of leaving,
I see my sibling’s sorrow at our separation,
vacuously comprehend the loss of a trusted
confidant, imagine
uncomfortable beds.
-glad that
I won’t burden the lives of others.
Of course, I’d stutter, I’m not overthinking it,
two years
before I had to
go.
3) My best friend fell in
head-over-heels (her summer wedges, I guess)
love and chattered the
whole year about it. As she put it, we
were still “BFFLs.”
****error. unable to process.****
Silly me, I’d never known anything akin to her infatuation.
I never would. I hoped to spare
myself and others. The one she thought
she wanted
spirited her away. The new leaves
on the trees and the grass in the sidewalk cracks
menacingly threatened to consume
her, leaving only a few
stray bits of confetti and
forgotten Easter eggs.
4) I read a note today and asked myself
why he had to conform. Wishing he’d asked me,
“how do people normally
kill themselves?”
And let me teach him, this is how
you write it; yes, typically it’s a handwritten note,
not a call sent to voicemail
or an email diverted to spam. Give them
one last view of your painfully slanted orthography.
And hearing him joke,
one last time, “I remember you claiming you were Miss Independent,
tell me the noncomformist
way you would do it.”
Okay, then. Follow my steps to the letter.
Catalog everyone that loves you, by their pets’ names if you like.
List out who will get your funeral invitations.
And to finish off, (I’m challenging you here,)
enlighten me.
What don’t I know about the man I married?
Enough that now
there meditates an unremarkable person,
having pulverized the cursor,
eyes affixed on a blank wall.
Realizing that contently understanding
is unrealistic, yet
not knowing just keeps the universe from widening—
Attempting neuronic dexterity and articulation
to bring into being
another
one of those poems.
Spell out life, spell out love
Fine