Recent Convert

Stevie Edwards

 

In the first shiver of autumn

before the landlord consents to heat,

I wear a puffy blue coat indoors,

basically a sleeping bag with arm holes,

and huddle into myself.

She’s gone, toothbrush, dandruff

and all. I am here in the very skin

I will die in, as alone

as every bug I’ve smooshed into itself.

One fly’s left launching

at the nineteenth century wood paneling.

We’ve all got to do something

with our lives. A church lady once told me

our thoughts are prayers.

I keep saying fuck you

under my breath this week.

It’s important to have a mantra

you can believe in. My neighbor drinks

until all he says is tranquilo

tranquilo tranquilo.

I love a body with a good scoop

of shaking night in it.

I guess you could say I have type:

It’s probably not you unless you stumble

into each day, an old blind dog

sniffing its own mess.

This morning I didn’t

buy straight razor blades

at the pharmacy on Green Street

but did notice them

next to the sticky tack.

I didn’t buy the sticky tack either

but did consider hanging

paintings with a hammer and nails,

buying paintings at galleries,

going to First Friday Gallery Nights,

Googling “how to hang a painting,”

believing in decorating,

in declaring I’d like to look

at this thing someone’s bothered

to make beautiful

every eve I slouch on this couch.  

I’d like to look—at least

until this lease ends. 

second draft // Some Everyday Verses

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Someone wrote that and said it was God.

Blessed are the desperate for they shall inherit the sky.

I wrote that and knew better.

I didn’t buy the straight razor blades

at the pharmacy on Green Street,

but I did notice them next to the sticky tack.

It’s the big shiver of autumn before the landlord

consents to heat. The radiator sits mute.

One gallant moth’s left launching at walls.

We all have to do something with our lives.

Someone once told me our thoughts are prayers.

I keep saying fuck you under my breath this week.

It’s important to have a mantra you believe in.

My neighbor drinks until all he says is

tranquilo tranquilo tranquilo.

I love a body with a good scoop of shaking night

in it. I guess you could say I have type:

It’s probably not you unless you stumble

into each day, an old blind dog

sniffing its own mess.


 

first draft // On Aloneness

Out of nothing into nothing I walk

like a motherless monster,

always looking at the sky because it is true

that there’s no God in it,

yet it is beautiful, goes on with its day

like nobody’s ever left it for the ground.

*

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

—Someone wrote that and said it was God.

Blessed are the desperate for they shall inherit the sky.

—I wrote that and know better.

*

I didn’t buy the straight razor blades

at the pharmacy on Green Street,

but I did notice them next to the sticky tack.

Someone once told me our thoughts are prayers.

I keep saying fuck you under my breath this week.

It’s important to have a mantra you believe in.

My neighbor drinks until all he says is

tranquilo tranquilo tranquilo.

I love a body with a good scoop of shaking night

in it. I guess you could say I have type:

It’s probably not you, unless you stumble

into each day, an old blind dog

sniffing its mess.

*

Wake up next to the same woman every day

in an apartment three blocks from yours,

until you wake up in your own bed still dressed,

maybe a glow-stick’s stuffed in your cleavage

and you didn’t take out your contacts,

but it doesn’t mean anything

has to smash against the wall

unless it’s already useless,

a cell phone that won’t hold a charge

or your hands that keep being hands

when you need a machete or a macaroon.

*

Let’s make a deal:

I’ll give you a mediocre handjob if you tell me

it’s okay that I’m crazy or that I’m not crazy

or just don’t ask me any questions

about what I’m thinking when I look at the sky

behind the driveway or the peeling building next door

but never your eyes unless I’m leaving.

 

Stevie's Commentary

I thought the first draft, “On Aloneness,” had a lot of emotional punch and some good one-liners, but I ultimately thought the sections weren’t working, that it lacked cohesiveness, that the shift between the “I” and “you” voices was sloppy, and that it was a bit too rant-like. There’s a tension between the more elevated language (i.e. “Blessed are the desperate for they shall inherit the sky”)  and the everyday (i.e. “maybe a glow-stick’s stuffed in your cleavage”)  in the first draft that I wanted to keep playing with but didn’t think was fully successful yet. For the second draft, I tried to strip it down to what I thought were some of the best individual lines (although, I am still trying to figure out how to add “when you need a machete or a macaroon” back into some other poem in the future). However, once I cut it down, I thought it seemed too much like a collection of witticisms and not enough like a poem with things to touch and experience. I think the third draft, “Recent Convert,” is much more grounded in place than the earlier drafts. I also found myself wanting to transition out of the anger in the first draft. Often, I think the more I look around myself, the more I ground poems in the physical world -- which has the potential to be as miraculous as it is mundane or terrible -- the more I am able to move myself out of negative emotions. I’m not saying this always works. Some things just suck. But this started out as a jilted poem about feeling dejected and transitioned toward more of a poem about finding grace in solitude, which is a poem I need more than I need the earlier draft. Also, for reasons I cannot entirely explain here, during the six or so months between drafts of this poem, I went from pretty staunchly believing that God was a version of Santa Claus for adults (which was a belief I held for many years) to being more open to the possibility of a higher power existing. I think that fairly major change in my personal beliefs inherently changed the point of view for this poem.

 
 

Stevie Edwards is a poet, editor, educator, and an advocate for mental health awareness. She is currently Editor-in-Chief at Muzzle Magazine, Acquisitions Editor at YesYes Books, and a Lecturer at Cornell University. Her first book, GOOD GRIEF (Write Bloody 2012), won an open manuscript contest and received two post-publication awards, the Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze in Poetry and the Devil's Kitchen Reading Award from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. Her second book, HUMANLY, was recently release by Small Doggies Press. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Devil's Lake, Indiana Review, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA  from Cornell University and a BA from Albion College.