Beyond Me

So many men I remember looking askew

at me, wondering, What are you?

I both knew & wondered too.

What I was came out of me & bruised

others though I didn’t intend to.

Women too, they saw me as a threat

who would take their husbands.

I didn’t want their husbands, I wanted

their husbands’ knowledge, so I could build

something, I didn’t know what,

it didn’t matter what, building took me

out of myself & into a world

where I didn’t exist except

in what I built, something beyond me.

Out here it's okay to be nothing. Want nothing. You feel

ashamed for a second then it's time to get moving. Get moving,T. says.

Or was it, Get loving? I wanted to stay in bed inside the tent. To hear all

the people breathing like we do until the tent's a hothouse or the inside

of a rocket ship. It's okay to cry sometimes, which seems strange to say.

In the films they make you stop. Not out here. It's okay to shake and say

I don't know or Please again and again. Someone's hand will find you.

Someone will ruffle your hair. Have you ever had a person say It’s okay,

softly to you in the darkness? Keep your eyes shut and say it to yourself

and imagine. A voice different from yours. Let the sun come up inside

your mind.

— Gabrielle Calvocoressi