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one salt, two salt
an insomnia poem about masking
one salt, two salt
red salt, blue salt
one to make your brain not manic
another to make your heart not panic
which salt, whose fault when
each thought is an assault
my brain tells me things are all my fault
I’ve been trying to bring myself out of the vault
I try to make my peace and then
the world brings complications back again
how do I hold love that is oceanic
how do I contain feelings that are volcanic
the emperor still tethers me with want
all the conversations he would distort
pretending to be a member of the court
transference trance made me his consort
using my maladies and their remedies to extort
slicing out my nerves and mapping their forks
my narrative rewritten and warped for sport
in the end it all sounds like static
records ruined from being stacked in the attic
what does it mean if I wasn’t enough
or if I was, but I was too hard to love
every time I try to make them see, I am rebuffed
but boundaries are always judgements
to someone who won’t admit to poor judgement
how is it possible to distrust what I meant
no matter how much emotional labor spent
it was never enough to pay the rent
on all the space they occupy, exempt
from any effort to reorganize or clean my drive
why was I not enough to make them content?
what did I fail to represent?
or was it something I failed to prevent?
what dreams did my existence leave undreamt?
I could not ask questions about their intent
without being accused of malcontent
the wreath of victory was handed to me
why can I not wear it, let things be?
the four of cups gives choice to apathy
and nothing native feels like part of me
swords on the beach, truth will set me free
but how do I see through the blindfold
how can I feel when I’m numb from cold
why is it my job to tolerate the scold
why is winning the only meaning they can hold
why is it so wrong that I have so much need
admiring boldness but never being so
living in shades of beige and white, so
little color and then only in the right light
if only I weren’t so present, awake all night
I know my feelings but I don’t want to see
all of the work those feelings have left me
if wishes were horses, beggars would ride
if turnips were watches, would we have the time
would we ever have the will to find
the way past wishing and into something
more tangible than wanting,
not stuck and haunting.
Monica Deck is a poet, author, and recurve archer living in the US midwest with her family and four cats. She is currently drafting her first novel, and formatting two full-length collections of poetry for publication. Excerpts from her two-part Charles Baudelaire adaptation, Flowers from Evil, can be found at http://jeetwincasinos.com/the-transformative-public.
