HERE’S THE THING
I have been trying to love myself.
It’s not a big deal—it’s a minor thing really.
But until now, I haven’t.
I’ve hated the gruff voice in the morning
before I’ve had a drink of water
and the soft half-moons on my fingertips,
shadows of guitar callouses.
I would look at myself
in the bathroom mirror
and drink a pint of self-pity
telling my reflection
she’d never amount to anything.
I was making myself a ghost, a place
where a person used to live.
Why not love the soft downy fur
on the back of my neck
and the fibrillating minutes
between sleep and wakefulness
when I don’t know if I’m dead or alive?
There are certain impossibilities
but I don’t think falling in love
with myself
feels insurmountable.
We put humans in space
and grow watermelons without seeds.
Here’s the thing: you have to find out
how to do a thing
before it seems possible.
Love myself?
I decided to try.
A small turkey sandwich with the crusts
cut off. A foolish dance
in the shower. Whatever I want
it’s mine—it’s magic.
The dim hours before bed,
putting things where they go.
Letting the dishes pile up
then cleaning them all at once
on an early Saturday
the windows open
the birds looking in at me
the whole world in love
or at least, me.
*
WHEN I DIE NOBODY WILL REMEMBER MY ZODIAC SIGN
When I keel over from a heart attack
in the Costco parking lot, nobody will say
“what a Pisces.” No one will care that I crossed
my arms too much in conversation—a nervous
habit—or that I I gave up on Catholicism
in the tenth grade (except maybe the Catholics).
When I die, nobody will care
that I was the one who let her gas tank
run until it got past the E line. Or that I thought
peanuts were the poor man’s nut.
When you die, as long as you weren’t a horrible
person, there will always be something
good to keep in your pocket. The way
your forgetfulness was a calling card—
the scarf you left in the backseat
of your friend’s car, or the hat that’s still
in your ex-lover’s attic. Everybody has a secret
and here’s mine: I want there to be more things
about me that are forgotten
than remembered. I want the way
I buttered my toast to remain a mystery.
My sugarsick days alone in bed, a mystery.
I want the small moment I sat
watching a heron swoop low and hard
with its beak to be known only to me,
a box of dust. A used-to-be. A thing
that was here and then was not.
*
Brett Elizabeth Jenkins lives and writes in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is the author of the book Brilliant Little Body (Riot in Your Throat, 2024).
wonderful