we unlearn.

Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward
by Anne Sexton

Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.

The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty of you,
letting you see how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.

Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?

Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man’s face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. “Name of father-none.” I hold
you and name you bastard in my arms.

And now that’s that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking off you. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.

i hold you and name you bastard in my arms

bastard in my arms

bastard in my arms

there is nothing more that i can say or lose.

I burst empty of you

empty of you

you

you

you

go child

go

go

go

and that is memory.

55

THE JAMS THE JAMS THE JAMS 0.0

I’ve never been so eager to get off the bus before, usually I just want to stay and SLEEP somemore.

Whenever I fall asleep, I usually wake up at the halfway mark – aka Sheila’s House area, before Hougang Stadium. Today, I woke up – at Eunos MRT -.-  THERE WAS THIS HUGE JAM OH MAN. And the bus was at Eunos MRT for goodness knows how long because it simply couldnt move faster than snail’s pace. AHH. And I kept on sleeping and waking up to find different people sitting beside me. Student for XXX School, Office lady, Indian Foreign Worker, Black Polo Tee guy, office lady again… It got to a point when I was tired of sleeping. -.- Yes how is that humanely possible.

aah!. I must’ve grown taller too I mean, I CANNOT GET COMFORTABLE ON THE BUS SEAT ANYMORE. I wish I brought a book.

But today made me rather happy. I love floorball. When I’m done with either drama or debate, I’ll go join. Hahaha. Running after BALLS with a STICK makes me happy (: I mean, yes its tiring, but its better than running aimlessly. I’d prefer running kilometres on court than round the track…

Then I went for drama auditions. Hahaha. The Roadrunners was pretty fun. Lol. “HE DITCHED ME TO MAKE OUT WITH MY BROTHER!!” Hahahaaa.!  The other one, in a liposuction clinic was hilarious, but the script was not as easy to understand as the first, albeit shorterrr. Haha. I don’t think I stand a chance at all for the second one because I STUPIDLY (WHAT GOT OVER ME AHH) auditioned for ONE ROLE. and I SCREWED IT UP. Stumbling over words ladalada. But oof, my monologue had this huge chunk on having sex, and how I was conceived on a kitchen countertop. That one was hard to do. First time I’ve been so explicit about sex in my LIFE. Thank goodness the director didn’t look at me while I was saying it. (He’s a cathigh debater)

=)

And rachel has a math quiz tomorrow.

the HORROR.

For Lit Option, we’re moving into poems dealing more with relationships between parents and children and the intricacies of the ties that bind and how loss is subtly yet inevitably and painfully entwined. Then again, pain is not always so- but I think many of us humans have the tendency to resist change (NEWTON’S 1st LAW OF MOTION =D ), resulting in feelings of nostalgia, melancholy… Gosh the assignment- present a poem whichever way you want it. I NEED A NICE NICE BOY VOICE. =DD well. MAN voice rather. you can’t have a squeaking boy when reading a poem about loss. cracks em’ up.

i’m terrible.

=D