In order to get good at this you have to earn it—you have to disappear. This is what your
English teacher says. Before you disappear, you need to know your own reflection. This
is what I say. In the apartment you grew up in your mirrors were raised without a face,
and the first time you see mine you mistake it for yours.
In order to get good at this you work for words that don’t exist because you are tired and
think that non-existence will save you. But every word that has been said was erected
on silence.
You instead.
In order to get good at this you learn that you have to choose which silence to listen to.
And that “which” always means “whose.” In order to get good at this you separate your
silence from your mother’s silence from your father’s silence from your mother’s
mother’s and wonder if silence has memory.
In order to get good at this you teach your blood to run counter-clockwise and wind up
wounds in case you need to play them back for people on a dime. Sometimes your
blood spills like a newborn and sometimes it spills like ink. You cry every time.
In order to get good at this you try to hold a girl
still but she’s too heavy for your poems.