7/5/2017 Poetry by Heather JohnsonImitations of Burning You dreamt of drowning, A dying that went on and on, a gin-soaked dream that followed you into waking. You found novelty in fear, which you wrapped around yourself like a fur coat, stroking its coarse grain. I’ve no success with drowning. I’m only good at burning. I tried beating myself against a stone to strike a spark, but his hands crumbled into fists, grappled, flung me to the linoleum floor. I was mute coal giving off residual heat. Even the grip of my son’s mouth at my nipple, tugging a strand called maternal love, couldn’t lead me to living. My dreams were bleak—the underside of waking. I tried to smother my frenetic thoughts underwater. No luck. It was too shallow, too tame. My catalyst came, his vulgar love inciting want. I don’t know how we did it—immersing ourselves into each other. The closest I’ve come to drowning. We couldn’t sustain it—slipped through the eye of each other, through the boiling foam, to find waking. We’re not meant to live in another. You drowned on air, on being. My landscape is arid—parched weeds rasp with the faint stirring of the evening. This is where I thrive, in the vibrancy of self- consumption, in the novelty of burning. Dear Dr. C You are an interloper who revels in the dregs of my clouded essence. You tell me separate yourself from the ache, don’t overlap with it. Otherwise, it’ll become your norm. Still I seek to detach my spirit—drunken, clumsy attempts to spill out of my body. You tell me be mindful, be fully present. It’s a set-up for failure. You well know my psyche resists being bound-- it seeks to expand beyond me, to project onto the sky’s green, luminescent belly, which drags along the cottonwoods’ spires and snags on the steel streetlights. You urge me to Stay, to write on--I break my bones so they’ll be that much stronger, I bite my wrists, gnaw on palm and knuckle to instigate renewal. I peel back my skin and probe past tendon looking for new being. You sip at the dregs of me, witnessing, as I pick out the fluted bone of my wrist, dip it in ink, and scratch it against the paper. Patricide “Daddy, I have had to kill you.” -Sylvia Plath Who said patricide was so very bad? You’re kind of dead already. You’re a horror movie zombie risen from the desert earth where we grow squash, corn, and zucchini. I think it must be the Anasazi, who lived in the juniper-studded valley before us, who resurrected you. Mud-caked, you shamble with an exaggerated masculine gait, viciousness in every pigeon-toed bootstep. You’re Nosferatu—dead thing gorged on the livelihood of others, dead thing whose only vitality is coaxed by the threat of sullen silences and the weight of your fists. You’re such a good fascist you’ve convinced my mother of your sacred philosophy, your Love is Violence manifesto. I dance the Enemy Way Ceremony, prepare myself to go to war-- I spew the liquor between my teeth as I slur your name. I whirl in wild circles and stamp on the memory of you. ![]() Bio: Heather Johnson (a.k.a. Heather Johnson Lapahie) is an indigenous writer from the Navajo Nation who teaches at the University of New Mexico and reads for the Blue Mesa Review. Her work has appeared in the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle. She’s currently working on a novel and book of poetry. She’s a mother, an avid Netflixer, and pug owner. Comments are closed.
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