from I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SING

I have never held a gun. I have never fired a rifle. I have never been aimed at by a pistol. I have never rescued a person from death. I have not been repeatedly beaten, though I have been hit, and shaken. I am scared of being alone, though around other people I often want to leave. I do not scare easily. I have never trusted the idea of unconditional love, though I have often wanted to be loved unconditionally. I prefer silence to small talk. I think it is impossible to retract a statement. I am not outdoorsy, indoorsy, summery, wintery. My sense of things can come from ideas instead of experience. I prefer to be barefoot. I love the crackle of a wooden floor.

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I have never known exactly who to tell. I have never made sense of a geranium. I have a ticket stub in my hand, I found it in my pocket, I will tell you in the morning. I have the face of someone younger, people are often surprised by my age. I am crippled and not crippled by illness. I have not made plans to go to Antarctica, Russia, or Hungary, though I would like to. I buy impractical shoes, hats, and jackets, I browse erratically. I prefer traveling to arriving. I have never stopped suddenly. I have never walked across an entire landscape in dread.

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I have never dreamed, I have never dreamed. I have never reached across a lake. I have hidden behind a flower. I have been followed, cat-called, pushed. I have been mistaken for my friend, and my mother when she was young. I have a strange feeling, I wonder if you’re near. I don’t believe that if something comes later, it must be better. I rarely fantasize about warmer places. Numbers bring me comfort. I am not an object, substance, idea, or thought. I wonder if people walk to escape walking. I wonder if intimacy follows the illusion of intimacy. I have grown more cautious. I am not striving for subtlety. I don’t believe doors are objects. I don’t rely on mirror images. I have never looked past all these fields in my mind.

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I have never held a blowtorch. I have never stormed a barricade. I have never kissed someone with a headlamp. I have never slept with two people at once, though I am curious about it. I have never not grown hungry in a line. I am not overly trusting of doctors, though I am often refilling prescriptions. I have never studied my body under a microscope. I don’t believe being a woman should make my medical bills more expensive, though I have been told to accept it. I like to spread crushed raspberries on toast. I am not absurd, divine, superfluous. I have been told the ways my body is useful. I like to take hot showers. I often fantasize in the morning. I both like and dislike attention. I have never stood for hours in neon light.

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I have never held a mouse. I have never held a muskrat. I have never held a goose. I have never bleated. I have never made the sound of an egret. I don’t believe in my height as my wingspan. I have never successfully fit inside a mollusk shell. I have never buried my food. I have never been suspicious of a rabbit.

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I have not felt at home in the ocean. I have never been a whale. I have not grown older in my hearing, only in my tastebuds, my voice, my face. I have never moved away from here. Leaving can seem painful. I avert my attention. I am not unlike a child this way.