Five Poems
Leviathan.
The band is always too loud. You can’t remember shit.
You write nothing for months and pretend to be a poet.
You attempt to remember something you don’t have a name for. Youth or love or life. Joy, you decide. That’s the thing I’m missing
You consume drugs in pursuit of the nameless thing which you call joy.
You want to change your name but don’t. It didn’t fix anything the first time.
You think of moving to Philadelphia. All your friends live in Philadelphia. Everyone hates you here, you’re absolutely sure.
You realize that there’s nowhere on Earth where you would ever be happy, no time or place in which you could ever not be you. You come to terms with this, and decide to revel in your own unhappiness.
You proceed to do so for several years.
Leviathan.
Over drinks with an old friend you remark that nothing feels the same. She tells you something which you can’t quite hear.
You say, “thanks. It helps.”
Leviathan.
You get older.
You make regrettable decision on purpose,
that in your old age you might have something to regret.
How many millions wish you dead?
You yourself one among them, another white
man’s voice.
You get so busy with survival
that you forget to live.
You use whichever bathroom you feel
least likely
to get your ass kicked in.
You reconcile yourself to this.
You reconcile yourself to it.
it is nothing new. You go again
to the bar
and somehow
the day ends.
Leviathan.
You try to summon something and for once,
you know exactly what.
Leviathan. An eidolon from a long-lost age.
You fancy yourself a character in a JRPG.
You fancy yourself a Japanese character in a Japanese video game,
which is exactly
as fucked up as it seems.
You are aware of this.
You are everything
you hate, which is to say
you are yourself.
You are not a Japanese character
in a Japanese video game.
You are not Chinese.
You are not even white.
You fancy yourself a character
in the movie of your life,
which nobody would watch,
because it is your life.
(Starring Scarlett Johansson because of fucking course. )
Your great grandparents fled genocide,
so that in a foreign country you might try
and fail
to escape
yourself.
You fancy yourself a summoner,
one who brings back things long dead,
one who has been traumatized,
and is still alive.
Leviathan, in all your wrath:
Wreak hell of hell
I’ve wrought.
Lacking cosmogony you attempt
to make
your own. You summon
your own gods.
You cook
each day
it helps however
much.
Hell, you’re told,
is a place inside your head.
so is everywhere,
you think.
Leviathan.
Your mother
comes to see you
at work
and uses
a name
you haven’t heard
in years.
You smile as you flip
an egg.
The world
turns
with you
attached.
June Gehringer is the author of “i don’t write about race” (CCM 2018) and “i love you it looks like rain” (Be About It 2017). She tweets @june_gehringer. For solicitations, inquiries, and to send a bxtch large sums of cash, email junegehringer@gmail.com.