by Arianna James
You tell yourself again, firmly:
This is not a symbol.
But your hands are shaking again and there’s
An ache in the center of your throat that
Tastes like mottled ash and
Your heart is beating itself against your rib cage,
An unstoppable force and an immovable object:
Which will turn molten first?
You think you hear sirens,
Chasing down a car crash in the syllabic nines
You tried so hard to write down.
And you think you should get ready to run away
But there are no maps large enough yet
To run away from yourself,
Perhaps there never will be;
They say the world has no need for more explorers.
You’re shuddering apart on mass transit,
And people are looking at you like you’re
Something dangerous.
That’s when you realize you’re the natural disaster,
You’re the volcano that’s seconds from erupting
And there’s nothing that anybody can do for you,
Not that anybody would.
Because your disaster, this chaotic dismantling
Of everything you’ve ever known
Is beneath all of them.
Because none of them will stop and speak to you
Except to remind you to please
Would you keep your ash from falling into their tea?
This is not a symbol.
You have never been anybody’s first choice.
You think you’re crying now, but you’re not sure.
Your music shuts itself off like a sign
From whatever deity watches over active volcanoes,
A symbol that even you can interpret:
Will you listen to yourself?
You sound insane.
So you pray to a god you’re not sure exists,
But you must get the answering machine
Because you don’t get a voice in your head telling you what to do, or a sudden epiphany from above
There’s just – not silence ¬– there’s just you.
You figure there must be some innocent child out there praying for pony, and really, you’re sure God has his priorities.
You have never been anybody’s first choice.
You kind of want to force tea and ash down everyone’s throats just to see but
This is not a symbol.
You are sick of people telling you that
You know not of suffering.
There are volcanoes everywhere, waiting to erupt
And you are not special.
You have never been anybody’s first choice.
So here you are,
Writing in second person because you are a volcano
Because your blood pumps molten lava
And your skin is a chilled wine glass
Waiting to fracture.
So here you are,
Writing in second person because it has always
Been too difficult for you to say “I.”
You have never been anybody’s first choice.
