Poetry by Erin Lyndal Martin

Elegy for My Retinas

Sleeping with constricted pupils, sleeping with asphalt
meadows of the well-lit parking lot beyond safety glass.

There are some windows that can never be opened,
not when rows of lights stare, unblinking,

at my crumpled form after I’m told to sleep.
When they come to look at me.

Every fifteen minutes my body bathed in vigilance
under the guise of making sure I’m safe, making sure

I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m not okay. I want to sleep
and forget that two nurses strip-searched me

in a supply closet, telling me to hold up my breasts
for them while they jotted down my scars

and asked me why I was sad. Asked me
if my bowels were regular.  Peeled off my shoelaces,

one saying “She’s got insoles! Check her insoles!”
I never got my shoelaces back.

I worried I’d be punished for not sleeping, thought
how they prepared syringes for me before I even got there.

The needles were full of a drug I don’t take,
were labeled  with a note that read

for severe agitation. I kept asking under what terms
they’d administer them. The nurse said for

when I needed relaxing, and closed up
my file. Lying awake, I worried about my limbs

surfacing above the scratchy sheet, worried
that the injections would come.

Later, at home, my pupils still constricted,
I feared lights would appear if I nodded off.

I feared the ghosts of nurses with syringes
in my doorway, feared them taking my pens

​and my shampoo again. My fear took on
an unbelievable wattage.

Bright enough to watch myself not sleep.




The Light

is not holy
or perfect
I am not
mesmerized
I am just
bleeding into
the water
I want
the light to be
a champagne poultice
artificial stars
but it comes through a door
I am not allowed
to open
I sit and sit
my tropisms fail
the light says
to stop crying
or they’ll never
let me out




Gravity

​How does one define gravity?
It’s the force that makes something
fall to the ground, but scientists
have it finessed much farther than that.
What I am learning is that gravity
affects light—news to me since light
has no mass, is only pure energy.
But light bends around a massive object,
and the other thing I’ve learned is that gravity
can break light too.  I learned this from you
because you told me all about it,
but mostly because you could not hear
the word no  and I swore the light in me
was falling and breaking again.
Three miles from home, five dollars
and no coat, it was almost sunrise.
I wanted badly for there to be light.
Thankfully the city bus was running,
and by the time I got on with frozen shoulders,
I had given up on anything dawning.
I clocked the ride home. Seven minutes.
I spent them trying to think of the right metaphor
to describe you, your violence,
and all the things I had to do
to make you take the force of your body
away from mine.  Later I thought
of how you talked about gravity, and light,
and how thanks to you, I won’t be able
to think about these things anymore.
I will burn them with the dress I was wearing
and if gravity or its memory could burn,
I would burn them too. Let there be light, asshole.

Bio: Erin Lyndal Martin is a poet, music journalist, and visual artist. Her poetry has recently appeared in Gigantic Sequins, decomP, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She's on Twitter at @erinlyndal.

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