bodies full of womxn
so many womxn
toss their bodies
across floodplains
to kneel
at the foot
of the bank
all the womxn
who died in me
can tie a knot
underwater
& paint with fire
how we live together
in one room
with one
hammock
speaking
to our deceased
in animal tongues
expressing nothing more
than a need for rest
dipsea
staring into
discrete, euclidean
rays
on the cliff
facing west -
when someone dies
strangers park their capital
on panoramic highway
faceless / defacing
the upper crown
of the oldest tree
predating
borders between
here & other -
below, perennial streams
flow through gullies,
our corneas
divide the sempervirens
a passing
embodiment
of the costal
situation
to swallow
vast blue
is an act of refusal,
a kind of lawlessness
in pillform
the tallest tree
the spectacle
i.
i’m trying to draw a face
eclipsed by a screen
& the screen is touching me
in a sexual way
there are no bodies
or masters
only an immense
accumulation
ofmuted faces.
ii.
tired of being scared
to wake up in the world,
a trader joe’s parking lot
i cry & consume
5 vegan cookies in a row
everything that was directly lived
has moved away into representation.
my body doesn’t look how it should
in the dystopian mirror
i am grotesque
my mind doesn’t sound
like language
the mechanical force
of crashing waves fracturing
the rock into increasingly
smaller fragments.
iii.
in the feed-form
i must be unconscious
of targeted advertisements -
blocking what i don’t want to see
manufactures a different version
of the same tangible world
replaced by a selection of images.
at work i’m copied in an email -
consider saying white identity
instead of white nationalism -
i need to identify
the root cause
of fighting with strangers
but i’m lost at sea
in the panic attack
one last
torrential downpour
until i come up
like a fish
leave me alone
please come back
describe these conditions
using the most specific
terms possible
there is no being
without being-with
the only path to liberation
is revolution
iv.
browsing 41 pages
of sneakers
designed for over-pronation,
a gaslighting term
which also seeks to
exceptionalize
the body
only serves
the production.
ever since i purchased
the 32nd shoe
i’ve had a lot to say
& the heat
has made us all
incandescent:
why all this pain,
how are others
complicit?
instead of touching the screen
let the screen do the touching
i swear
it changes everything.
v.
connected or removed
from all these people
who look familiar,
is dating science
also a construct?
it’s bad
so it must be
but i forgive you.
can a person
be overwrought
or is that
reserved
for aesthetics?
i keep ruining
what i meant,
every generation
thinks it’s the last one
oblivious to all
surrounding events
we could leave
this art object
at any time
don’t think about it too much
-
Isabel Bezerra Balée was born & raised in New Orleans and has roots in Northern Brazil. Her poetry has appeared recently in Elderly, Littletell, and Anomaly! She writes in an ambiguous genre, about a multitude of subjects, at: ibalee.tumblr.com. Links to poems can also be found there. She lives in Oakland, CA.