Morrigan - The Size of a Bird

THE SIZE OF A BIRD Copyright 2017 Clementine Morrigan Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. The publisher is also grateful for the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada. Cover design: Cee Lavery eBook: tikaebooks.com Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Morrigan, Clementine, 1986-, author The size of a bird / poems by Clementine Morrigan. (Inanna poetry & fiction series) Issued in print and electronic formats. -- ISBN 978-1-77133-458-7 (EPUB). -- ISBN 978-1-77133-459-4 (Kindle). -- ISBN 978-1-77133-460-0 (PDF) I. Title. II. II.

Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series PS8626.O7554S59 2017 C811.6 C2017-905457-0 C2017-905458-9 Printed and bound in Canada Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 210 Founders College, York University 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax (416) 736-5765 Email: THE SIZE OF A BIRD POETRY BY CLEMENTINE MORRIGAN INANNA Publications and Education Inc.
Toronto, Canada ALSO BY CLEMENTINE MORRIGAN Rupture For Sam and for Angel Contents I. WRITE A PLACE FOR THE PAIN Write a Place for the Pain Write. Find the words in your spine. Find the words in your fingers. Find the words which are not words which are sounds.

Find the bathtub words, the swing set words, the words for grassy lawn laying. Find the words for break ups, broken hearts, getting on your knees and praying. Find the words for hope, laughter, running down sidewalks. Find the words that are choked up in the back of your throat, breathless. Find the words that ache in your gut. Write. Write.

Find the words you wrote in a letter to your first girlfriend after she broke your heart, the words for the way you went back to your math class and lay your head flat on the desk, crying. Find the words for no, for not now, for not ever. Find the words for get off me, for Ill fucking kill you, find the words for never fucking touch me like that again. Find the words for Im sorry, I miss you so much, I did the best I could. Find the words for long lost fantasies, what you thought would be, what never was. Write.

Write till your hands hurt, till your mouth is dry. Write past the running out of words. Write past the pointlessness and the not knowing what to say. Write until you remember. Write until it makes sense. Write until it doesnt make sense anymore.

Write until you forget. Write about being nineteen and getting drunk on martinis and pretending to be grown up. Write about the words your ex-best friend said to you. How she said you were a writer and you told her no. You havent been writing much anymore. You havent been writing because there is nothing to say.

Ever since he stripped you naked and shoved dry fingers inside you. There are no words for it. You couldnt write about the pain or the shock or the way you laughed and danced around his room naked. The way you let him become your boyfriend. The way you decided that you must have liked it. You were fifteen.

He was eighteen. He was your friend and he was supposed to be a good one. Write about how you never called it rape. You couldnt find the words for it. Write about the things you would write in the margins of your diary. Back thoughts you called them.

The things that didnt fit into the narrative, that didnt quite make sense. Write about the fear you know deep down. The terror there isnt words for. Write like razor blades and beer bottles and smashed glass and blood. Write like one night stands and lost condoms and puke. Write like weed smoke and black eyes and Im sorry Im sorry Im sorry.

Write like youre so fucked up when you drink no one wants to be around you. Write like suicide attempts and liquid charcoal and getting formed. Write like I want to live I just dont know how. Write to know how. Write a love letter to the future. Write away the impossible pain.

Write the hope which blisters and burns. Write tomorrow. Write today. Write the letter that you wanted to receive, the words you needed to hear. Write that love unconditional. Write that witnessing.

Write that it wasnt your fault and it never should have happened. Write that its okay, you fucked up, you can try again. Write the honest truth, the messy overflow, the silence. Write what wasnt said. Write what you remember. Write the gaping holes where memory should be.

Write Im sorry. Write Im not sorry. Write I did the best I could with what I had and now Im trying to do better. Write it out. Write it down. Write a new world into being.

Write a place for the pain. Write a second chance. Write possibility into action. Write the night skies reflecting starlight on black water. Write the words: Im still alive. Dead Raccoon on the Highway I sit next to him on a park bench on a cool summer day.

His smile is beautiful. He tells me I am gorgeous. I take the compliment, wrap it up and put it in my bra, the place that is closest to my heart. So, I am gorgeous. I have succeeded at the task of being beautiful. I have made myself desirable and I am pleased.

My heart is still beating, beaten and the sounds of shimmering sentences fill the space between silences. I am trying to stay in this moment. I am kissing a man who I described to my friend as too sexy for his own good. And that is good, its good, its good. I will remember this later. I will lie in my bed alone and try to relive the desire.

I will conjure it up like a ghost and I will make pathetic love to it. There is a dead raccoon on the highway. Flies eating at its rotting corpse. A beautiful creature laid to waste from daring to risk movement from one place to another. Crossing the land cut to pieces by roadways. Animals killed by families in cars going on a trip to the cottage.

The raccoon runs across the highway in frozen time. Struck. Killed. I dont know why this comes to mind but I see the gathering flies and the raccoon now dead on the highway. I see the yellow lines painted like stiches. I see the impression of a tire flattening the animals middle.

My body is not a dead raccoon. My body is not roadkill. I am a human being having a human experience. It has nothing to do with an animals life senselessly cut short on the highway. The sunlight and shade mingle on his face. He is eager, coaxing me with promises of pleasure held subtly in the way he says his words.

I am barely here. My hands touch his skin trying to feel the softness. This is better than nothing. It is better that I still try to feel something, even if the feeling is fleeting. Its a little nourishment. I have felt nothing for so long.

His smile remains beautiful, my heart remains beaten, ghosts remain ghosts and I still try. I lean over; admire the mole on his neck, the stubble on his face, the exact shade of his hair and his green brown eyes. He certainly is too sexy for his own good. My enjoyment is like a dancing skeleton, a spectacular spectacle, a spectre. Nothing at all. First Dates Riding my bicycle next to him, I remain torn between worlds.