This is just a story.

A Re-Education of the Organs:

21 years go by and during the last few you’ve noticed this new weight
That punctuates your existence
Putting pressure on your sternum and crushing your tits flat
Into the slats of your rib cage.
These last few years you’ve learned to flinch at the touch of
Your own shadow and disguise your female markings with
Bars of plaid and buttons on the wrong side,
Cologne to cover the pheromones,
Letting body hair grow like moss
Each tendril exuding an aura that screams
Fuck off.

There’s a new weight now that’s buried under your stomach
Like a mold spreading roots into previously functioning organs,
It oozed into the crevices of your brain and you’re back to 3rd person narration,
Hiding in a tense that gives you space from a self you don’t remember.

Its all reruns and flashbacks now,
static on every station with neon flashing episodes egging the insides of your skull.
You get used to the smell.
Its all twisted limbs and 2am insanities, flopping fishlike on the mattress
In a lake of sweat and the excretion of very bad dreams.

Its taken time gone by for me to try and ensnare in language the
Circumstances and happenings
The “what went down� on that December night between us
Two persons, together on my twin bed lavender sheets.
Time gone by and still I struggle to articulate, define
To wrestle into intelligibility the events of one night.
Suffering does not tolerate forgetting
And the body has dark ways of making itself known.
The heart is not content to cry alone in its bucket of dark.

I’ve learned this fear that lurks behind my eyes.
It drops pebbles in the depths of my iris to transform every strong jaw into a razor blade,
Every handshake into pillaging fingers
Every kiss leaves the taste of cum
Since December
Since you.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this dream
I am carrying an enormous burlap backpack full of books with blue covers. It hurts to walk, the weight is too much to carry. Men in white vans keep rolling down their windows to ask if I want a ride. They whistle, jeer, and call me “the blond� which is odd considering I am a brunette. I shake my head and wait for the next van to pull up, wondering how long I can hold out before I accept a ride.

-----------------------

In this dream
I am on campus walking out of class. He comes up next to me on my right side and touches my arm. I worry my heart is beating too fast for its delicate tissue; it may explode from stress like a rabbit, staining my ribcage with tomato juice. His arms glide around my sides and I fall into the familiarity of his body against mine.
I forget that he once pillaged my body and burned the soil of my soul.
I forget that his hands are nail files.
I forget that his body is a dying fish gasping and flopping on the deck of my breast.
I only remember how much I loved the smell of his laugh and the taste of his smile.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this dream
I am buried in the limbs of a tree.
High in the air, I am surrounded by emerald jewel leaves, squinting like the inside of a pomegranate.
Every so often, I am flung up past the branches high into the sky and fall back to my perch. I suspect trampolines are hidden inside the bark. If I scraped away the tree skin I would find springs and plastic mesh.
I am spying through holes in the glossy foliage to the earth below.

I see Him.
The man who’s ejaculate fed on my organs like a fungus, coating my lungs, heart, and kidneys with a yellow resin, crusty and rotten.
I want him.

He can smell my hunger; he can smell the slow decay of my insides. His eyes find mine high above him.
Without warning, he envelops me. Phantom hands are on my face, tracing lines from my jaw into the tangle of my hair. My eyes are strobe lights, punctuated with blackouts. The world is spinning green jewels and warm hands coated with fungus. I melt into the waxy yellow green moss in the crevices of the bark.
I acquiesce.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)