Poetry by Jenn Koiter

                Marketa CC


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from The Survivor


I push my foot into my boot, and you die. 
I put my toothbrush on its stand, and you die.   
I put on my headset, and you die. 
I fix myself tea, I order Thai food, I smudge 
the surface of my tablet, and you die. 
I find the plushie you gave me 
for Valentine’s Day, and you die a little harder. 
You die as I walk past the gas station on 51st, 
past Alex and Alix’s apartment, 
past the Chili’s at 45th and Lamar. 
I click the key into the ignition, 
the radio switches on, and you die. 
A pothole jars my right front wheel, and 
you die, you die, you insist 
on dying. You always were 
a stubborn ass, but I can be stubborn, too. 
I can hold out as long as it takes 
for you to listen. Listen:
That’s enough dying, now. 
You can stop, now. 
That’s enough.




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How are you holding up? 
is the best way to ask, is the way 
we ask each other the question 
to which there is no good answer. 

But surely there is a word 
in another language, a phrase coined 
by Kierkegaard or the Buddha, 
meaning today I am at my most 
human, meaning 
I am not okay and 
I’m okay
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Jenn Koiter’s poems and essays have appeared in Smartish Pace, Bateau, Barrelhouse, Ruminate, Rock & Sling, and other journals. She lives in Washington, DC with three gerbils named Sputnik, Cosmo, and Unit.

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