And the eye that eyes itself is your eye
And the ear that hears itself is too near…
You’re getting too close to your source
–Andrew Bird, “Eyeoneye”
It starts with your nose: nose to knee.
See your toes? Count them, just in case.
Remember how Mom promised they were candies,
tootsie rolls and strawberry frooties.
If your stomach growls, lop one off.
What you can’t do is think about what got you here,
head buried into your body. You
cannot see how a hand could grip a tuft of hair so tight. You
cannot see how a word could be so hard to pronounce. Forget
etymologies, phonetics.
What you can do is roll your whole body into itself,
curve, till your ponytail tucks between your ankles. (You’re not so
symmetric after all.) You have no opening, a Mobius strip.
Flashes of your violence—your throat, impossibly hoarse.
“Visualize a better tomorrow”: what a joke. All you need to know
is the underbelly of your belly, the sweat under your kneecaps,
the inside of your throbbing head.
You are a rock,
and you are Sisyphus.
About Lauren Sawyer
Lauren is a graduate of The Seattle School who loves contemporary literature and poets who don’t rhyme. She often sympathizes with Dorothy Parker’s saying, “I hate writing; I love to have written.” Read more of Lauren’s written work at laurendeidra.com.
