Tiffany Promise blogs about life, literature, and hairless cats.

Alcatraz

11/29/2014

sometimes ghosts hitch themselves to uteri
trespassing indelicately
to ride the rough rough Pacific
in a semi-watery semi-bloody not-quite-grave.

there’s an ancient stink in the clink
it’s archetypical in context:
crime/capture/confinement/escape
it’s maddening in reality.

someones must have died here
(they don’t tell you on the audio tour)
i’m breathing in their death like dandelion puff
their confinement is my confinement
is their confinement; i can’t quite cry it out enough.

we showered meticulously when home
scrubbing at leftover sadness with loofa and salt
i forgot about that empty pear-shaped vessel
stuck solemnly beneath the constant fullness of gut.

sometimes ghost come to full term in less than 37 weeks
bathed in their own tears and lullabyebyed in echo
they find ways to creep out like they creeped in
seeking comfort in escape, death is footnoted.

my body a cracked egg, oozing with ectoplasm
sometimes ghosts take up more space than they know
cleaving an ozone-shaped hole, they meander on and on

i forgot to be forewarned, now i’m all solitude and clank.

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Original Goth Girl: Emily Dickinson

11/25/2014

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I recently took a 3-week/5-state/17-town trip to New England. (Which you already know all about if you follow me on Instagram. If you don't, you are missing out on hairless cats, abandoned buildings, and artsy/literary/creepy/weirdo stuff. Find me now: SOMETIMESGHOST.)

The absolute most important stop on my epic, fall-time adventure was to the Emily Dickinson Museum/House in Amherst, Massachusetts.

I don't remember exactly when I read my first Emily Dickinson poem, all I know is that her words have historically had the power to sear my head completely in half: leaving my planet-shaped skull hairless and bloody, exposed to all of the despondence and glee that the heavens hold. Emily's words are magic.

In undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College (years and years ago) I undertook a "Queering Emily Dickinson" independent study project. I spent hours with her words, becoming very involved in her (lack of?) romantic interests, magnifying-glassing her correspondence, and picking apart the fleshy loaves of her poems. She is the archetypal madwoman poetess, the solitary scribbler, another product of her time/place. She lived for her poetry. She lived inside of her poetry. You can still find her there if you look close enough.

Emily's poetry is full of constant movement. I have found that with each reading (especially as I read them at different points in my life) her poems are always alive with new meaning(s), they are always fighting stagnation. Her strange punctuation, and plus signs (+) allow for multiplicity in meaning and breath. She never allowed herself to be boxed in; her fluidity spiiiiiiiiilllllls.

While listening to the awesomely-engaging, poetry-spouting tour guide at the ED Museum talk about Emily's practicality and ingenuity (she had a tiny pocket sewn into each of her dresses to hold a small piece of paper and pencil), I felt a slight buzzing at the nape of my neck. When I turned around, no one was there, not any psychical being anyway. Of course Emily's energy would feel fluttery and bee-like! I thanked her for the inspiration and support, blew her a kiss, and offered my own pocket as a safekeeping for ghost pencils and ghost paper.

Here are a few of the pictures from my pilgrimage:

Emily's house.

Paying homage.

Emily's Epitaph: "Called Back."

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
by Emily Dickson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

(For tips on how to read Emily Dickinson's poetry, go here!)

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bone of my bones

11/25/2014

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it’s not because I was formed out of your wimpy rib
it’s because you literally have more blood than me, blood-bag.

I have all kinds of other things that you wish for (maybe secretly):
ovaries, uterus, fat-sacks, thistles.

you are all grizzle and hair.
and blood.

my girlfriend (on the other hand)
is a bone-bag;
she gets cold very easily.

we have to do this thing with fur-shirts.
it seems old-fashioned and scratchy,
but it works.

we also play a bendy, limbo-like game.
it gets our lack of blood flowing,
our backs bending.

--which is essential, if not scriptural--

because sometimes our cold spines settle
in s-shapes, and we cluck all night in pain:
(gosh darn) hating the snakes that plague us.

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Alcatraz

Original Goth Girl: Emily Dickinson

Emily's house.

Paying homage.

Emily's Epitaph: "Called Back."

bone of my bones

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