from Branches Without Leaves
an essay on a word


6.
scribbled on scrap paper. you want to keep doing this into the future. sign here. date it. write it. say it. live it. the narratives we tell (ourselves). you tell hybrid stories. fact, fiction, sound misplaced, modifiers, dreams repeated as misheard memories. you decide how to narrate my past.

(Rankine: is he dead? is she dead?)

present elided by blurry images. you paint between lines you have drawn by hand.

(no one deserves to be shot 41 times.)

re-create events for some character who has my initials, is not me. I am in a room with no door, no window, a phone that doesn’t call out. when it rings I talk to you but there is no one the other end. I can’t find my stories. filed in another room I try to narrate them for you but there are no verbs, or articles, available. I realize there is no phone. I am talking to the face I imagine is you, projected on the wall. when I wake I am on the floor. suffocating. repeating the same 3 line story wondering if you can hear me. a chant. trying to catch my breath. repeat. what happened to that paper? the one you signed? in a file with my stories. the stories you told before you disintegrated on the breeze. you are in front of me. cannot speak. mumble in nonsense syllables. lips contort. my hand goes through your chest. I wake in the corner. why did you, I repeat. I crawl into the closet. curl on the floor. the dog snores. your face moves out of focus.

(Rankine: what’s the use of forgetting if its followed by dying? this is the most miserable in my life.)