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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="maps-master.css">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico">
<title>the poetry</title>
</head>
<body>
<header>
<a href="index.html"><h1>touch the maps in your brain</h1></a>
</header>
<nav>
<a href="poetry.html" class="currentpage"><h2>the poetry</h2></a>
<a href="experiment.html"><h2>the experiment</h2></a>
<a href="exhibition.html"><h2>exhibition</h2></a>
<a href="maillist.html"><h2>stay updated</h2></a>
<a href="sources.html"><h2>source list</h2></a>
</nav>
<main>
<h1>poetry</h1>
<h2>table of contents</h2>
<div>
<table class="structure">
<caption>the links in this table direct to their respective poems below</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">table of contents</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td><a href="#uno">have you ever messed up?</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td><a href="#dos">fun and games</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td><a href="#tres">the Moon</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td><a href="#quatro">self-care checklist</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td><a href="#cinco">clockwork friend</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td><a href="#seis">ego</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td><a href="#siete">vanish (no podemos)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td><a href="#ocho">i am now become the blue screen of death</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9</td>
<td><a href="#nueve">the haunting of bly manor on iosepa street</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td><a href="#diez">bedsheets</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11</td>
<td><a href="#once">pancake-brain-filing cabinet</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12</td>
<td><a href="#doce">the cathedral window</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13</td>
<td><a href="#trece">a model of vertigo</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14</td>
<td><a href="#catorce">take your meds</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="mediaparent">
<div class="mediacontainer" id="uno">
<h3>have you ever messed up?</h3>
<p>Every living human has their body, <br>and a brain that learns how to nod, <br>and blossoming social intuition helps a child grow up. <br>If you don't have the social rulebook, the calculations are a pain. <br>A manual plugging in of cues grows complicated, lasting longer and longer. <br>Less adept people need the time to learn it on their own.</p>
<p>This is the burden you shoulder on your own. <br>You've conditioned yourself to ignore the inconvenience because you've always lived in this body. <br>Every year, the list of cues and experiences grows longer <br>Gesture, tilt your head, don't raise your hand, raise your hand, wait quietly, step louder as you enter the room so that you don't scare your roommates, pay attention with a light nod. <br>All of the fingers on your hands break through your skin, and you map the pain. <br>Every mental comprehension is stored up. </p>
<p>But have you ever messed up? <br>Like the moment you pick at someone's skin and they grimace in pain? <br>Your nails dig, leaving indentations and marks that match your own. <br>They flinch away from the contact of your body <br>You press fingers past the sutures of their skulls until you feel under their cranium, until you know their signs, signals, signifiers that represent the moment they want you to laugh or nod. <br>The assumption transforms introspection into obsessive, apocalyptic thoughts that only stretch longer. </p>
<p>The days are once again longer. <br>Looking at the sky, you tilt your chin up. <br>You look back down in a drawn out nod. <br>You walk to the library on your own. <br>The disappearance of your friends once wracked your body. <br>You still do not know how to embrace the thought of measured pain.</p>
<p>You tried again and and now your body shakes in pain. <br>The drive to the ER has never felt longer. <br>The worst part is the tightness in your body. <br>You hold your hands up. <br>The numbness is mostly gone, they're back to being the hands you own. <br>It takes self-control, but when the nurse recommends taking a walk to relieve anxiety, you simply nod.</p>
<p>As you retell this story, all your therapist will do is nod. <br>Her job is to calculate how to sensitize you to the dissonance of social pain. <br>She knows one day you will find people who do not cling to their own. <br>She knows that your breaths can draw out longer. <br>She knows that you can lift your eyes up. <br>She knows that you will admire the world beyond your body.</p>
<p>With a nod to the girl, you wait a while longer. <br>The pain of seeing her has drowned itself, then dried up. <br>The withered husk stays upright on its own, but you've weeded all of the shame out of your body.</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="dos">
<h3>fun and games</h3>
<p>let's pretend we live underwater</p>
<p>you can be an atlantic salmon <br>drowsing through kelp <br>and wild sea reeds</p>
<p>i'll be a trout <br>following the memories of mom <br>to find a place <br>to safely raise my children</p>
<p>we can be a family <br>if you'd like <br>the matching fears bode well <br>for feelings of security</p>
<p>maybe we'll be happy <br>and swim between the <br>wild, breathing bodies <br>in the street</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="tres">
<h3>the Moon</h3>
<p>as with most moments,</p>
<p>this one is fleeting</p>
<p>it flits and drifts</p>
<p>i scan The Moon, a goddess to someone, loved and revered. She is a rock to me, and i scan the craters over and over. not to memorize, no, my desolate, cavernous brain couldn't if it wanted to. i admire Her. the slow pull of gravity, the luminance of a giving sun, it brightens in a fuzzy halo that it shares with the atmosphere. the clouds are curling, the wind a breath of a giant i call my father. these things change, shift, but never leave.</p>
<p>in the sky</p>
<p>visible to smile at me,</p>
<p>The Moon stretches full.</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="quatro">
<h3>self-care checklist</h3>
<ul>
<li>prioritize your happiness**</li>
<li class="verseindent">**long term. not short</li>
<li>every moment feels shameful.</li>
<li class="verseindent">guilty wastes of days where your soul hides in the corner of the brain</li>
<li class="verse2indent">where the light doesn't quite break up the cobwebs</li>
<li class="verse2indent">and potential tumors</li>
<li class="verse2indent">and the dusty heaps of breathing paper sit untouched</li>
<li class="verseindent">you worry about those in the morning as you</li>
<li class="verseindent">floss your teeth.</li>
<li>⋆｡°⋆drink water ⋆｡°⋆</li>
<li>listen to penelope scott</li>
<li class="verseindent">the shame leads to those late nights where love is a daydream in the dark, pitch black and warm, dry reality seeps into things that feel more real than the textbook that sits on the floor</li>
<li>do you want to feel better?</li>
<li>schedule the appointment</li>
<li class="verseindent">hope your therapist is ready to listen</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="cinco">
<h3>clockwork friend</h3>
<p>puzzle pieces.</p>
<p class="verseindent">peas-in-pod…</p>
<p class="verse2indent">hold my hand,</p>
<p class="verseindent">smile-with-teeth</p>
<p>push-and-pull:</p>
<p>you know the approximates of my pain, and yours.</p>
<p>and we brag in humility about each other</p>
<p>you waved an old college mate over yesterday</p>
<p>our breakfast together never stops call-and-reply</p>
<p>and fortune smiles on us every day</p>
<p>aren't we lucky the stars threw us together?</p>
<p>programmed to be together.</p>
<p class="verseindent">we walk around in chopping steps.</p>
<p class="verse2indent">tick tock</p>
<p class="verse3indent">arms lock</p>
<p class="verse4indent">puzzle piece.</p>
<p>wait!</p>
<p class="verseindent">the teeth grit</p>
<p class="verse2indent">against each other</p>
<p class="verse2indent">the pieces have stopped.</p>
<p class="verseindent">the cog wore</p>
<p class="verseindent">too thin</p>
<p class="verse2indent">and</p>
<p class="verseindent">the other gear continued along
<p>with [NULL].</p>
<p>[AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.]</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="seis">
<h3>ego</h3>
<p>connections.</p>
<p>you wander away<br>and ghosts in imaginary wheatfields drift in the dark, <br>light and neutral they float<br>until the ground is gone and pride has disappeared.<br>this is not the ending though.</p>
<p>me.</p>
<p>I am the center of my own universe, everyone says that's a bad thing but I know it's good, it's the flow of the world pushing through me but I still hold the same position, arms outstretched and reaching towards stars in opposite direction, warming the bones and the sinews that contain consciousness, and heating a collection of moments that the honorable call a soul. I am the cradle of beginnings and lives and endings. resting on pillows, the universe creates and processes and moves with rapid eyes. the center of all beautiful things rests in newly laundered bedsheets.</p>
<p>we.</p>
<p>pull out everything from our teeth to our childhood playlists, roll our eyes at the flaws that we see in the people we loved, take off the labels and smiles formed by the random chance of unseen luck. uncover that nothingness the space that all objects in the universe hold between our neutrons, and behold the tree that grew taller than we could ever be. the leaves always pitched through the window of the house we grew too big to fit in.</p>
<p>you.</p>
<p>shed the skin of feeling<br>and let it free<br>your spirit wanders<br>or maybe something else<br>drifts away<br>when you're like this<br>you're always<br>sopping with nostalgia</p>
<p>we've grown up since I last curled up near your feet. our world is not imploding on itself, the eyes hiding behind the pictures in our home have permanently shut. we sleep in beds draped in layers of late bedtimes and rgb keyboards. distance is the real love and hate.</p>
<p>I will always grasp onto your universe, even when you try to toss it away.</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="siete">
<h3>vanish (no podemos)</h3>
<p>so there's someone I haven't told,<br><span class="espanolduality">poder</span></p>
<p>the security of knowing but not is only <br>second to<br>a traumabonding scene <span class="espanolduality">can<br>(like I can, you can)</span><br>and she wouldn't, no saying yes in<br>daydreams <span class=espanolduality>puedes</span><br>since i met you in a school filled<br>with gold in the halls <span class="espanolduality">can you</span><br>I will be the rat scratching at night in <br>my walls<br>puedo</p>
<p>so lay on her bed and talk while she<br>cleans<br><span class="espanolduality">I can</span><br>and find the discipline to smile<br>and fight the impulse to split at the <br>seams</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="ocho">
<h3>i am now become the blue screen of death</h3>
<table class="structure">
<caption>for a screen-reader friendly edition of this poem, please click <a href="bluescreen.html">here</a>.</caption>
<thead>
<tr><th colspan="7">i am now become the blue screen of death</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>a</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>glitch</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>in</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>I'm</td><td></td><td>the</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>sorry</td><td></td><td>(central</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td>my</td><td>but</td><td>it's</td><td>nervous)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>it's</td><td>the</td><td>promise</td><td>without</td><td>a</td><td>system</td><td>restart</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>stutters</td><td>no longer</td><td>the</td><td>stim,</td><td>but</td><td>again</td>
</tr>
<tr><td></td><td>of</td><td>makes</td><td>little</td><td>a</td><td>somehow</td><td>until</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>places</td><td>sense in</td><td>blue</td><td>tic,</td><td>the</td><td>maybe</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>you</td><td>words</td><td>quadrilateral</td><td></td><td>moss</td><td>it</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>said</td><td>or</td><td>everything</td><td></td><td>doesn't</td><td>might</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>you'd</td><td>structure</td><td>would</td><td></td><td>gather on</td><td>maybe</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>be:</td><td>I'm</td><td>still be</td><td></td><td>the</td><td>make</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>those</td><td>sorry</td><td>vaguely</td><td></td><td>stones</td><td>sense</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>bright green</td><td>but</td><td>placed.</td><td></td><td>rolling</td><td>again.</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>scissors</td><td>without</td><td>not to</td><td></td><td>down</td><td>organize</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>keep</td><td>the</td><td>mention</td><td></td><td>familiar</td><td>every</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>going</td><td></td><td>the</td><td></td><td>mountainsides.</td><td>folder</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>missing</td><td></td><td>seeping</td><td></td><td>restart,</td><td>and</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>and</td><td></td><td>of</td><td></td><td>restart</td><td>get</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>exhaustion</td><td></td><td>restart</td><td>get</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>at</td><td></td><td></td><td>absolutely</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>inconvenient</td><td></td><td></td><td>nothing</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>times</td><td></td><td></td><td>done</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>anyways.</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="nueve">
<h3>the haunting of bly manor on iosepa st</h3>
<p>let this pass quickly, please<br>something trails from her arm it's obsession dipped in the form of friendship and that girlthe one painting in your house? she is a bittersweet sunrise, all curly hair and hetero glasses, the quirk of her makes her just my type, all soft edges and her warmth, somehow calculated.<br>let this pass quickly please<br>let this pass quickly please<br>please please please please please<br>that's what holds me back<br>crooked carefulness<br>sure, let that be the excuse where our heart-shaped hands could be<br>please let this pass quickly, please please let this pass quickly<br>watercolor rainbow<br>enough to feel a smile at your grip<br>strawberry ice<br>with lime syrup<br>sweet and sticky<br>or maybe hold me tight</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="diez">
<h3>bedsheets</h3>
<p>Fall into the cotton sheets<br>They'll swallow you,<br>They'll let you feel your breath on your own pillowcase</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>“I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.”</p>
<p>until then i'll be stuck<br>vibrating limbs<br>scrape of soft cotton sheets<br>and dull drag of scratchy fleece<br>and i'll sleep</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>maybe<br>easy to get lost there, easy to be found</p>
<p>the wheeze of the air mattress is an exhale, and all of the scents hovering around intermingle with the dust and dying breath of cells pumped into the velveteen and plastic-coated vessel.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>found safety in another strange woman<br>on her couch<br>we waited for her roommates to ascend out of earshot</p>
<p>and she revealed a heart to me<br>and a sliver of her stomach</p>
<p>and younger me trembled<br>and shook in a bed<br>bare of a frame<br>the sliver of light, an incandescent<br>light that hung from the ceiling and resembled the distrust<br>that flitted across my parent's faces</p>
<p>they can see everything,<br>so little me couldn't dare think it</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>the universe does not experience supernovas. it lives through implosions and indentations in pillow cases. sad sack, bed head, sideways keyboards, all universal truths
the bed feels mealy today.</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="once">
<h3>pancake–brain–filing cabinet</h3>
<p>HOW IS EVERYTHING SO BLANK<br>PANCAKE BRAIN<br>or<br>SQUISHED WAFFLE<br>EMPTIED FOLDER<br>and<br>AN UNOPENED RECYCLING BIN<br>SO WHAT'S THE ISSUE?<br>BECAUSE EVERY DRAINED POOL<br>HAS A DRAIN<br>and <br>A STOPPER.</p>
<p>Something has budged…<br>It crawls, but it still<br>Presents itself as a small<br>Sluice of a solution. And<br>the music hums, and <br>the verse engraves the <br>hollow walls of the <br>Filing Cabinet Brain<br>with traces of vague clues <br>on how to make it to <br>a dead line<br>without dropping out</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="doce">
<h3>the cathedral window</h3>
<p>Broken Oaths<br>Do you want that paradise?<br>Or not paradise,<br>Peace?<br>You want safety?<br>Or do you still hold that cloud<br>heaving with weight<br>Dark, thick with unfallen<br>drops, but not enough<br>It drags behind you on the ground<br>Is it really your responsibility?<br>Consider the heaviness of your heart<br>Is it tethered to that cumulonimbus?</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>take the cup from chapped lips<br>out here bleeding on a piece of cement<br>hidden on a hill next to the playground from childhood<br>you feel softer here, in this exposed hiding place<br>warmth radiates in the fold and dimples of your cheeks<br>you pick up my bloody heart from the dark red velvet of a little child's skirt<br>cradled in your hands it look so small<br>and place it back in the cavity that formed as Adam fell<br>men are that they will be joyous</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>top the shape<br>peak the fit<br>and let my breath <br>feel like they're rational<br>let Me feel less panic,<br>okay ok alive live living.<br>my Mother and <br>God did not send me here to feel like that.</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="trece">
<h3>a model of vertigo</h3>
<p>I am a brain floating around in a jar</p>
<p>No sensation connecting even when something connects</p>
<p>Whipping winds in tornado<br>Scratch at the door where no one knows you're there, sit and pant like a starving,<br>overheated dog <br>Is this a fever<br>Is this a fever?<br>Is this a fever or am i falling back to earth?</p>
</div>
<div class="mediacontainer" id="catorce">
<h3>take your meds</h3>
<p>where'd it go?<br>all the screaming<br>not even an echo now<br>blue screen<br>no explosion or implosion, it feels like a <br>jump cut<br>the sudden silence feels like relief<br>in the wake of a former friend</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>the noise gone,<br>i see the trauma of a human made of muscle and blood<br>connection, the tethers are hard to keep attached</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>the universe can't swallow the pill. it sticks, bitter. the universe coughs.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>there's a pill for that<br>why does this feel like that</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>you'd think that medication manufacturers would know better than to flavor pills without a warning. some people would chew the paper without looking but the anxious would have the clues that they aren't paranoid. they could know that anxiety now tastes like a nilla wafer, and not morning breath</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>you swallow the rattle down the throat. you think about how the little pellets would taste. you feel bad for the pill shy that accidentally crush the pellets if they chew the applesauce. turns out the rattle was still connected to the snake, and the feeling in your blood morphs you into someone who can finish the weeks-late essay that sits on your chest at night. it will keep you up at night as the antivenin works to increase your tolerance. rattle and snake and venom and antivenom.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>the fickle chemical. sweet, ever willing to help you feel better for a time, but you need to up the dose. up up up up up. did you take it this morning? are you really truly on it? have you taken it at all? it doesn't feel like the pill has ever crossed your lips. maybe you're the first and only person ever who is unfixable, unprescribable (you are not the first who feels this, even in your family). the doctor knows what she's doing though. you trust her. so you take a tablet and a half of sugar every morning.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>it tastes bad. the circles feel so good, life changing and comforting all at once. they should paint mini pixelated smiley faces on them because they deserve to be admired. but they smell like dad's breath after he fasts. you don't remember the last time your life felt tinged with the positive. your saturated thoughts are kneaded into a moldable eraser that reveals the calm screentones behind the layer of graphite clouded on the inside of the cranium.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>the only one you hope to stop using someday. all you need is an air conditioned unit and more control over your surroundings. and a vacuum. the feeling of the liquid in your nose solidifying is ambivalent.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>caffeine is dangerous.<br>my school told me so</p>
<p>an old friend that stuck around out of convenience. it was running a marathon over a mountain and wanting anything to work after the finish line gets crossed. no matter how much you train, no matter what you do, you recover afterwards. no matter how much your body needs to be there, your prediction of the mountains coming in backlit lcd on a cardio machine will not save you from the stumbling crash.</p>
<p>it takes the screaming shower head and changes it to a sprinkle in a shallow swimming pool. a tiny white circle with that proves your independence from the people who don't need you when you're struggling. they leave you with a vision that turns into frosted glass at the corners. you know how bad something has to be to want the creeping fog. this is not fun. it's safe.</p>
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<p>©Nat Stewart</p>
<p>Font "OpenDyslexic-Regular" courtesy of Abbie Gonzalez. For more information on the font and related dyslexia resources, click <a href="https://opendyslexic.org/about">here</a>.</p>
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