Mad Birds, by Viviane Vives

Posted on October 22, 2019

Lake Travis, Spicewood, Texas. December 6, 2015

Do not go to the edge, stay with me, I will bring you the light of my years

spent in high heels, then motorcycle boots, I will pluck the memories out of the

notebooks I fished out the trash. I will take away the grief, I swear it will be

worth it. Even if it was known, even with your discontent and shame, do not go

crying into the wilderness tracing tattoos that are not yours, erasing mine.

. –“It’s the most practical thing.”

. You have no fucking idea of how you’re going to tear. I have practice.

I’ll remember the exact moment I felt the story complete, how you looked like

a dirty kid lost in the dim light. I will go down under and change the seasons.

I’ll think you’re stupid. That you make me nervous. And I you. Terminate.

. –(“All that lost healing!”)

. I wish the wind would stop blowing. I write. I’m free, I’m

free. I free myself. Empty. A whimper over my chest, a quick hand in

my pants to the hairs is really nothing. Nothing remains. I offered a

prayer, the words came, madly, like newly released birds, but maybe it

was just the turkey vultures, starving, over this fucking emptiness.

. I want a man, I thought yesterday, who does not retire but enters.

One who is not ashamed. He wears an antler made of tree branches

and becomes Him. That. Man. Birds flying through the desert.

. From your notebook, Bambi:

. -“The wind makes itself visible by what it touches.”

. The birds that fly on it.

*The 64, best poets of 2018*

The Black Mountain Press