(that way you lived a life untroubled
by distortions) (pigeons fucking outside
the window, were pigeons fucking
outside the window) (because they lived
just outside your room) (every bird call was
associated with a bird) (I had flickers, birds
in the bathroom) (bird sounds even
in winter) (& spiders always out the corner
of the eye) (I don’t know how to tell you
what it’s like to be uncertain if the birds are real)
(to wonder, whether the shadow around
the corner is a normal element of light)
(or something sinister) (how even the dull
incessance of unwavering electric bulbs
carry shadows in their light) (there is a space within
psychosis) (early on) (before the break’s complete)
(where everything’s uncertain) (I knew then
what I heard could not be real) (I just didn’t know
the way to tell which parts were features of the world
or which were miscast by my brain)
(your boyfriend didn’t understand) (what’s the big
deal if you can’t tell if birds are real) (they’re
just birds) (it won’t affect you either way)
(it’s true) (hallucinating birds, in the grand scheme
of things, is relatively harmless) (but it’s not
about the birds) (it’s the foundation
that falls out) (once birds are unknown quantities
there goes the rest) (bugs, car alarms, people
shouting your name) (a phone that does
or doesn’t ring) (the shadows morph & faces
flicker even in the sunlight) (once you can’t
tell if one thing isn’t real, you can’t tell
if anything is real) (our senses are so basic
to our lives) (they filter everything) (inside
psychosis what you see is unfiltered, overfiltered,
but the filter’s wrong) (the brain circumvents
reality itself) (simulates the sun, the shadow, sound)
(uncertainty breeds fear) (& everything is bright) (it finds a thing
& latches on) (for me, that thing was demons)
(there were 2) (one was a red man who screamed
at me) (his voice was hot & thick & sounded
like the dead tone on an old TV)
(the second was a great black figure, winged,
& with enormous arms) (between his shoulders sat
a grotesque sky blue skull) (of all the things
I knew) (& knew so few) (I knew that he would be
the one to end my life) (I tried to make
a record of that garish afternoon) (journals, letters
poems, text, etc.) (I lived) (& in the interim nothing
happened) (life is awful boring) (I still can’t figure out
the way I got from schizophrenia
to love) (I simply have, as usual, a kind
of vast & endless registrar, a database,
a list of everything you ever saw someone do
while they were in love: kiss, hold,
take, eat celery, eat carrots, eat
applesauce, kick a stone, stutter
out i love you, lie, be lied to, lie again,
fall, flicker, sleight of hand, the fingers
as they interlock a few moments after
getting out the door, paperclip a few
files together, make coffee, drink coffee
forget to clean the coffee maker, make
coffee anyway, make love, walk, talk,
of nothing, of politics, of love,
of where to eat, do laundry, fold laundry,
gaze out the window, clean the window,
spin each other to an unheard music
across the kitchen floor, discomfort,
wine, blankets on the couch, how one
comes up behind the other to embrace
them as the the other is doing dishes,
spill juice, clean the table, fight, clip
toenails, eat yogurt, lean against the
bus stop on a hot afternoon, why is there
a line down the middle of my scan, god
damn printer, not even six months old,
a list of hands, arms, legs, positions,
have sex, sleep, fuck, take a shower, sleep, try
to sleep, paralysis, image, blur) (& then there’s
these two) (harried, they came homeward
thru the rain) (water cut by roof) (split to fall)
(drip, flow, spatter) (often words came) (not so
today) (palimpsest) (iridescent) (she had to
force it) (paddle) (aromantic) (gone that curious
aphasia of the sky) (she found an image of chaos
in something simple as the rain) (one day when you
asked me) (upset) (out loud, but without these words) (yes
I mean to say I am in love) (yes, I do mean
to say it) (could you say it any other way---I mean,
does it have to be like this) (of all things) (like this)
(yes) (carry me back to the cloudy shore, where
we once stood by the small lighthouse)
(we had gone, we said, to the lighthouse
to be, in our own way, novelists, poets,
critics) (what a way to have friends, a
kind of silence possible only among
friends who by their nature are silent
so little to say, but important to do it
in the presence of those who understand)
(how love or friendship or that mix of the two
are uncommon things) (& how did you feel
that day) (do you remember) (how the small
motion) (so many waves on the water)
(oscillation) (the persuasion of motion)
(in the early spring) (some wet surface
painted with a grey pallet) (wave) (three years
later you say you didn’t go to the lighthouse
with us) (I was dating L then anyhow) (& still somehow
I remember you there) (or want to) (it doesn’t
matter now) (you, on one coast) (married
to J) (me, on the other) (looking out the window
at my job) (how blue the day is) (waiting for
the State to update its files) (struck always with
this blue) (& everything that color triggers) (so in
its very nature it was, as I understood it to be, the color of
not of sadness, as so many consider
it to be, but rather of possibility) (of reality) (of
the imagination, the force, Williams says,
of which is comparable to steam or
electricity) (so) (your voice) (I always want
what I can’t have) (& when I say
the demon had blue hands & a blue
skull, I mean to say I saw every painting
possible in which I died & this was one
of them) (I was crying) (convinced they were
coming to eat me) (instead that night you were
there at the door to see me & said you ought to run
your hands through my hair, offered to get
in bed & hold me against the demons)
(& I had no recourse after that but to keep living,
despite my knowledge of each blue painting
of my death) (so we were given paintbrushes by death
& we said to each other) (of course
I did) (we said to each other) (we said
Evelynn Black is a trans writer from Seattle. She received her MFA from Cornell University. Her poems have appeared in Peculiars Magazine, Requited, The Seattle Review, and other publications.
Twitter: @poeticambiguity