Elizabeth Theriot
Elegy for Living Alone
I was waiting for the moment of arrival—
the dock where I would land & love you
exactly as you love me.
What happened was, I planted a flag in myself
Not the first or sturdiest but
I’ve woken alone when I want to, sky smudged
exhausted bluish lilac I trace beneath my lower-lashes.
All this my body’s effort,
not a bad dream or sour limbs late to bed—
I contort toward whatever internal clock insisted
wake!
& insisted, & insisted
Your morning dressing room is softlit, green with foliage
I yawn & draw the curtains
Once all this might have fit but I am ill-fitting
I have shrunk in the wash, been thrown out with the bathwater.
I splash & gasp. Doggie paddles. Meanwhile you are patient,
lugging buckets of worms & warm carbs.
See, the worry is not belonging to myself.
I watch you dice peppers to pile like jewels in my freezer.
You toss away their maggoty guts & I am grateful
& then I pause
because I’ve already chosen my turrets
wallpapered the stone in artificial blue,
white lines slashed to filament but
there you are, folding my laundry.
Okay, sure, love me
but understand
every second I breathe has some death in it
even while kissing my half-asleep face I need you to see
how analogy breaks down, & the monsters,
& the shed skin in a trail behind me leading
back into the dark storied wood,
the rumbling, the jerking away
to remind my eyes it’s not his face I’m pressed against.
It’s not. The skin just likewise stretches.
I am so adhesive. So terrified. Pinched between
a rock & everything else I didn’t want.
But there you are, making the coffee.
Elizabeth Theriot is a queer Southern writer with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She earned her MFA from The University of Alabama and is writing a memoir about disability and desire. She is a first year Zoeglossia Fellow and a teaching fellow with the nonprofit Desert Island Supply Company. You can find her work in Yemassee, Barely South Review, Winter Tangerine, Ghost Proposal, A VELVET GIANT, Tinderbox, and forthcoming in The Rumpus and Sugar House Review. She lives in Birmingham, AL.