Mike Rosen - Erasure

8/8/2019 Mike Rosen - Erasure

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By Mike Rosen“the illdefined”

www.TheNewConfusion.com



for A J J L & H

Acknowledgements

Sarah, Mom and Dad because, even at its best, gravity doesn’t catch as well as you do.

Amanda and Janine because you spoke and let me listen.

Odetta, Bennett, Corey, Jason and Jamaal because the first line isn’t the only family I’ve gotnor the only home.

No poem is written alone,so to all those who gave me the time of day and loved me with red ink, thank you.

ENGL 316. Ryan,S-O invents the sky.

Elizabeth Willis. James Thomas Stevens.Dad (again) for the books.

Josh for the songs.Andrew for the stories.Mel for the shoves.Davy for whatever it is you do.

Boulder for your time and place.Connecticut for your winters.New York for your benches and that lamppost in Riverside that hasn’t stopped flickering.



Page | 3

Process

binge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge

binge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge bingebinge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge binge



Page | 5

Poster for Winter in America

I do not remember what color her eyes were just the space behind themseen floating dawnupon some symbol:

like a sunfish or a ruptured casket– bearing the indigenous home again.

The space behind them:tunnels that dove through the tissue,the burnt hemlines of her reverie,and the frayed edges of a scar

left from the night you lined her stomach with linoleumand told her to smile

tunnels dust- laced the vesicles of a past she wasn’t old enough to possessand caused a rhythm in her chest, like salsabetter done fast, and smilingand you told her to smile,didn’t you?

When you took her county fair countenanceand made your symbol, yourlittle girl

with baby skin, unscathed by the world you knew you were bringing her intoto face, like it was some bright-eyed wonder of a snow daysome summer field swing setsome sea crash sand castle

you hid the truth,posted her on poster board,said it was an honor, and told her to smileas if wewere the protected delicacy of non-native shrubberyin deer-fenced gardens–but it just don’t look like rain today, captain.

Now, it’s winter in Americaand your fair is over:the posters taken downthe poster girl, left to bring your past into something called traditionbut this future is not warm.



Page | 6

There is no chicken wire, deer fence, sea castle.There is just winter, in America, the crash, and the chapped lips

and that face you said was perfect,for your poster,that day when you told her:

keep smiling .* *

I think of my younger cousin:she is Charleston 70 degree beach day with a 3 split tongue twisting Luxembourg,

French, and Englishwith European narrow street red scooter flairand a dash of Californian don't give a fuck

her eyes fat yellow moons over dusk oceansreigning peace from the bright piece of her iris–the light spotthat turns red in amateur photographs.

She is photographed often:photo shoot shot fired for paid hireoffer status bags stuffed,freshly filled with worn wish lists:

Ugg brand boots she sharesover plastic wrapped dinner tablesserving barbecue pork

on Passover.

Today her dress swirls orange flowers out of summer-coming dance patterns,her hair curls sea lions out of beach shell shore lines

– she was the dreamfrom tattered story book America fairy tale:

back when we had heroes, rolled them into scrolls deemed declarativeand fought tyrantsand went westand dreamed big, and bigger, and freeand broke ground, told progression,and protected the sacred, and the innocent, and the lovers

she was the dreambut they make her its mascotwhenever they tell her:keep smiling.

* *



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Keep smiling. Keep smiling.The only thing she said she was ever good atwas smiling, for you,so she smiled. But it got cold,and when she couldn’t smile, she laughed harder,

and made herself in to a smilethat bruised its cheeks on my lipsand blackened its eyes with my words.

So she crawled back to the tunnelsfound answers tumbling up pipes she rolled of dollar bills,

and the pipesled to the tunnelsled to the tissues.

It hit with the speed of darknessa sleepy Connecticut sunfall from broken telephonesthe echoes of hollow point mortalityand the faceless rocksshe ground over coffee tablesinto perfect, snortable rowslike the farmers at your fair.

It hit again. Right between the teeth,a bruise in her nostrils the cause of no blunt force traumapiercing the stained membrane God once designed as armordestroying a body was okay, at least,it gave her reason to smile.

But that smile,born in a camouflage at the bottom of her craniumit wove through her wiring,pouring into ribs, spreading through lungstill it shined across her face.

But that feeling,that feeling that is supposed to come with the smile,its simultaneous inspiration and by-product, that feeling



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That feeling,never made it back through the stained membranes,never made itto her heart.

But you told her to smile.

And I

I don’t remember what color her eyes were.



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In Memory of Spirit 1

You have built this.I stood and watched played along across diamond smiles tossing softballs into spring

bumping off the tips of

:: branches:: infant laughter:: a deep breath:: not realizing

[what we were]:: building

a man mademuseum of her

human body,

the grandeur of mortalityof acquiescing one’s child [hood]

excerpted from broken programmingstreaming realityinto living room sacred America

the denizens of Abstraction

tacking human taxidermybehind rosewood.

1 Transit-related emerge and sees often result from loss of [operator] control.



Page | 10

The magazinemeasuring Michelangelo outof a single hair,the period of an eye blink needed for proper beauty. 2

You burned disasterinto the space where ego should have grown,curated herself-conscious,divining the imperfect ion of

every crevice

those pants should fitthose eyes should sinkthat hair should flythat’s just the problem with you, Alice:

you are.

Always too tall or too small [elephants or skeletons]

all the people around

you are fake.3

2 On icy roads a car’s tires may lose traction causing the vehicle’s rear end to spin out, sending car and driver hurtling at sixty miles per hour.

3 In this situation: remain. [calm.] turn the wheel gently, in the direction of the spin out until you regain control.



Page | 11

The black lines of a coloring bookcolored with permanent markers

they built those books with cheap paper. Pages weregrey,

bled

the colorstold a story we could all see

plainly enough

but these are the kinds of discoveriesmade in white rooms

with white cloaksand fancy white paper that never bleeds dark black ink

– eye could see,I did,and I did nothing ( These are examples of leaving out )but wish them beautiful again.

[it is so easy now to forget,not as easy as it was to ignore]

Now, every word must conjure.

I think: Do not mince words.The sun flower sutra,

bleeding unicorns out of a garden hosea note for a letter to a person you once loved [inexplicably]

without bounds



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that will be sealed but never addressed,the object withinsnowballing significance,waitingon the right moment,which will passwithout occurring

Do not waste a word,there’s hardly enough

lining to sustain normal brain functionor anything normal, really.

There’s no fat on her bones,it’s too painful for her to sit on the ground…

There’s a point where things fall apart like patience,like patients,like the ability to ignore something obvious,

elephantsliving room

skeletons closet

Failing to angle the light properlywe mouthed silence into vowelsbetween ribsshe starts, as if to speak

crop fires simmer on the horizonand there’s not enough lining. 4

4 To remain calm, remember: regaining control is a possibility. It is also: an option.



Page | 13

There’s a rustle in the leavesnow make believe is mouthing off again.

Many adolescents, because of their stage of cognitivedevelopment, lack the psychological capacity toexpress abstract concepts such as self-awareness orfeelings

You needn’t teach me echoes of a history I can’t understand history whispered into wind by turn key cartographers

whose made maps were flawed and thus, I have not been there, [to the dis-ease]cannot be there, cannot evenfind it. Don’t want to.

Want to hold close, chest skin softWish: curewas her(e), notin black page place, where words cannot go wish it was easy, like her saying:

―love me like a warrior till you make me feel beautiful.‖

My body won’t leave a miracle.It will be there in the morningI cannot make you feel.

These words not spokenhoped – as if arms could cure disease

so nothing happens nothing is said ( …and the last silence reveals the lining



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Suddenly, there’s a notion like the sense of a train coming,metal and rust and sparks sanded from simplicity,burials on bitten lips licked by flamehow real it all seems [elephants andskeletons]when you never look downinto her eyes, and real eyes5

the gravityof relevance

(One begins to forget thatone islooking inside. )

She should have eaten two thousand eight hundred caloriesbut no one is watching herso she’ll eat just five hund red

and I shiver in a cold that doesn’t exist this is a diseaseand recognize that she is remembered as something categorical

serious effects :: biological,:: psychological:: sociological

morbidity:: and mortality.

5 When was the last time control presented itself as subject to choice?



Page | 15

Recognized as something:

potentially irreversible

:: loss of dental enamel:: structural brain changes :: pubertal delay:: growth retardation

…she starved herself back into childhood

deficiencies :: calcium:: vitamin D:: folate:: vitamin B12

these are forms of control: PERSONAL , PHYSICAL , SELF , MIND , BODY , TIME , POLITICAL ,SUBSTANCE , SECULAR , COMPLETE , UNDER ,OUT OF …

:: body temperature (92 degrees)

:: autonomy

:: self-concept

:: self-esteem

:: capacity for intimacy



Page | 16

Something categorical:outpatient, intensive outpatientpartial hospitalization, inpatient

hospitalization,residential treatment,

cognitive behavioral therapy,hormone replacement therapy.

Inpatient treatment becomes necessarywhen outpatient treatment fails.

…their daughter’s health is a commodity they must purchase

Short-term nasogastric feedingmay be necessary.

Lack of care, or insufficient treatmentcan result in chronicity with major medical complications,

social orpsychiatric distress oreven death.

… you could see the outlines of her organs through her skin

A gutted landing, like spot, like empty platepoised in shaking fingersof high resolution image that fills this picture bookdocumenting anorexia and bulimia in thirteen year old girls

I do not know this disease.But I know those. Those are bones. Those are the bones that form knuckles.

We call this death, disfigured, emaciated, horror, heaped. Also, colonized, infected, immobile, fear.



Page | 17

STOP.

( These wounds are me. Icannot let you live your life this way,and at the same time I am slurped into it, falling on top of you and falling with you. )

FREE FALL , NOUN . The motion of an object under the influence of gravity alone, there being neither thrust norappreciable drag acting on it; The state of being inmotion under such conditions.

Hadley asks if she scared me

( and it’s like trying to sto p an ocean )

I don’t like watching my friends disappear, most are not magicians,was never scared of you,

seen this trick before,plus, sometimes the edge is a creature of heaven, you might just find yourself.

But still scared of course, I was scared

FREE FALL , NOUN .The state or fact of undergoing a rapid or un-controlled decline.

– it’s scary, [exhale]and I love you.



Page | 18

How real it all seems,when you never look down:

at the flint tint pagesshe flipped

their bodiesoiled, glistening

Roman godspiled between thighs of fresh pressed indigolimbs lingering over marble chestsand jaw lines that stalk darkpages glossed in cheap inkand scars of yesterday’s headlines, tilting hegemony from a chalkboard —

( But it is your landscape, the proof that you are there )

There are wonders here.Come and let us listen.

My mind wanders.I am told: stay focused. Do not lose control. So,I am four pills.Sterile yellows, blues, whites, pinks,the vague tasks assigned to each

each supposed to do somethingeach supposed to help.

We are never ready, it seems,for the body to change.



Page | 19

In the silence,I recall:

I remember when Julie started bringing her meals to school with her:cheese and crackers and grapes. Tupperware rectangles kept fresh inbackpacks with brand names like North Face. When she opened them, the air would escape, reeking of mother’s cooking. Also,insecurity and uncertainty.

Her food always looked better than that of cafeteria buffet plastic. Iremember the other kids could not resist. They asked for bites. Shecould not resist. She was happy to share.

All of the food Julie ever ate was inside those containers. Sealed, airtight, zip-locked innocence. Grapes and celery nibbled betweencool table coffee talk politics.

I recall: bodies

(dwindled into starshine like unwanted memories. )

* * *

I’m having difficulty in starting to do things. I seem to have to ha ve given up.I have stopped trying.I feel paralyzed.I feel numb all over —



Page | 20

( I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way.Something to stand in their place. Not the truth but

your self. )

*** Certain minds were borrowed for this piece; they include John Ashbery, MarkNowak, Common Market, The Kickdrums and some assorted news and sciencearticles on eating disorders. Their contributions are usually denoted with italics, Ashbery’s appear with both italics and parentheses.



Page | 21

Sheets

Her sheets were empty when I came home from the hospitalwhich was not surprisingbecause these sheetswere never used for sleepingwere never made for sleeping

these sheets were not made for sleeping

were made to cradle falling porcelain from kitchen floorsthe empty plate, poised in shaking fingersof the high resolution images that fill this picture bookdocumenting anorexia and bulimia in thirteen year old girls

I do not know this diseasebut I know those, those are bones,those are the bones that form fingers,we call them disfigured, emaciated,human piles.

these sheets were not made for sleepingwere made to be tied together and dropped

out of windowslike ladders so she could escape

then stream behind her as she whirled barefoot skies dancing hurricanesout of Saturday afternoons

these sheets were not made for sleepingwere made to be used as slings

made for gauze wrapping her frozen injuriesmade to satin siphon the blood from wounds I couldn’t close made to keep her warmbecause when a body drops to 92 degreesit doesn’t feel like August it’s too painful for her to sit on the ground and terms like “hormone replacement therapy”

imply that she has starved herself back into childhood

these sheets were meant to be used for scrolls, for story books,for stories, for the story already scripted into individual ribssomething, about bike rides, and sunsetsprom dates and fairy tales, first kisses, frog princesand teddy bears, but no



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these sheets were not made for comfortwere made to simulate a sense of control

in a thread count that matched her daily caloric intakea sense of controlin a world where she had none

so she made her ownin a sense that manifests at breakfasts she never ateat lunch when her side smiles handed out cupcakesat dinner tables with family when she did nothingbut hold food in front of her face

did nothing but hold food in front of her face just to provethat she could resist

this is not how people were meant to existis something that I could not fixsomething that no body can fix

this is a diseasethis is a virusthis is what causes double vision in adolescence

and hallucinogenics in pre-pubescencewhy misogyny and cosmeticsshould be considered types of eugenics

this is not the last breath of a coward who enforces the death sentencethis is the death sentence

did you know that in the developed world twenty percent of people diagnosed with an eating disorder

die

twenty percent equals one out of five

I have five friends who are diagnosed anorexics

I do not knowwhich one this poemis for.

I do not knowto whom those sheetsbelong.



Page | 23

To You

What if time, notescaped, but ratherstepped sideways until we

caught up and rodeinto some epic eternity

we’ll mark love by midnight

but, come mourning, understand to be suede shoe snowfall?

Won’t we be special then?Won ’t you have your pleasantry then?

Your Sunday coffee-lip crossword,dangle leg and ‘ruly eyed

Your picket fence Piccadilly over orange moonsYour crew-cutted varsity leather

but that, of course, would involve being stationary,a static rolelike that of an overcome thespian,a more secure sense of self.

People become symbols of times and placesyou are the mascot of that time:

the floral crematorium built over Broadway, that methat existed there,that moment,

held in the weakest strain of dark matter connectivesheld imminent, silver screen of a snowflakeas a time we’ve passed through, since you:

the last lozenge, the empty bottle of Acetaminophen,lodged in the stomach of an 18 year old girlcollapsed under the small spattering dropsof a rain showered dormitory

the virus befalling her, vision doubling thru your bathroom mirrorseeing, but wanting, the palm linesgleaned from the sides of busesand pages, fingered crimson with deceit.Indexing her esophagus,believing that skinny is a compliment.



Page | 24

You have already told us all your stories; we are waiting for them to end the record spins silent,stirring its rhetoric from the needleswe used to stitch the patchwork

onto your daughter’s frame. When we found her trembling December into porcelain tile.

You are not a game anyone wishes to play again.

Er a s u r eby Mike Rosen

[email protected]

Mike Rosen - Erasure

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