i write notes in my phone and hope to be profound. i have examples. you see, i am the kind of girl that makes love to the subjunctive. i am not proud of this per se but i like to wear my wounds. i have better wounds than this but i want to be mundane. all feeling is mundane, but some are more so. ne mogu uvijek govoriti o ratu, even if you want me to.

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these are notes i have written in my phone, hoping to be profound: everyone’s cried in a shower [untrue]; there is texture to et cetera [stolen]; entombed; stitches. i am probably not profound. or rather: we are only allowed certain depths.

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i think there is glamour in words. words like divulge especially. i like its erotic, its intimate. i like its aural symmetry with vulva, with bulge. i like the way its consonants cradle a soft, secret centre. you are a soft secret centre. i think there is glamour in words, though less so in meanings. the first time i came down i cried to my ex: words are so beautiful and i cannot have them all. there is nothing special about a white woman’s hunger.

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i dream that the midbirth of my daughters tenders me to: following the dog down; committing acts of grace; falling into silences. i am a bad mother, i say things i do not mean. i say them because i like the way they sound [quiver; annihilate]. it is a good thing i am not a mother. it is a good thing i will never be a mother. it is feminist to be a mother, or to not.

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these are notes. these are extrapolations. one day twenty-five years ago terrible things happened but no one remembers them now. if a man falls in a forest, et cetera. uvijek moram govoriti o ratu, even if you don’t want me to. alternatively: they could not see the genocide for the trees. this is not a note, this is an observation. mothers were involved that day too. and also, not mothers. mostly they were sons.

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in real life i rarely fall into silences. this is why i am not profound [there are other reasons, too]. i do not like silences, the way they are pre-emptive. i would tell you the words i have filled silences with except that i want to seem mysterious. i am probably not mysterious. i divulge too many secrets. but also: they are not secrets if you say them out loud. this is protective. i will let you guess of whom.

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in the forest, many people could have been saved but were not. this is not a secret although it might as well be. i have never saved anyone but i feel sorry for small dogs whose legs work so hard to keep up with humans. i have sympathy for all things, but especially for myself. i have cried in many showers. this is not a secret either.

Read the rest of Poetry in Lockdown, edited by Toby Fitch and Melody Paloma

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