SARAH RUSSELL
VEGETARIANISM
I wasn’t going
to eat meat,
anymore.
Veggie burgers
with barbeque sauce
became my daily lunch,
and I was proud.
I could eat vegetables,
soy and tofu – why not?
It’s healthier, right?
But I cheated,
for a Whitecastle cheeseburger
that had so much of
what I wanted on it.
Like what I did to you,
cheated for something
so good,
I’d never regret it.
CONFESSION
I’m drunk
and beginning to think
that love doesn’t exist.
Two gulps of cheap vodka
made tears spring from my eyes,
while my throat tightened.
And I know,
there is no more love.
There is no love
in this clear liquid.
There is no love
in this small kitchen.
There is no love
in this under-construction heart.
I can’t find it in the songs,
I can’t find it in my own words,
I can’t find it in the pebbles
outside my doorway
that crunch underneath my feet.
Love eludes me
at night and in the morning
drunk or sober.
This cracked heart
is like an old painting,
beautifully fragile,
for people to admire.
DEPENDENCY
I.
You’ve been so close to me
filling me with the
belief that I can accomplish anything
when all I need is space to breathe
on my own
without this breathing apparatus
without this ventilator of you
pumping oxygen and my future
into my lungs, into my soul
as though I had never been able
to expand and contract
these organs
to fill my body with life before you,
as if I’d never lived before you,
as if I’d never taken a breath before you.
But now it feels like
I am drowning,
suffocating,
desparate to rid myself
of this life support,
to rid myself of you,
and learn once again
how to breathe
on my own.
II.
And I’ve held this hand,
its fingers long and strong,
mine fitting between the knuckles,
and it holds on tight,
grasping for something more than
my skin, muscle and bones
grasping for something more than
my bitten finger nails,
bare ring finger
and short pinky
Clinging desparately to something
I don’t think I can give away,
Trying to pick pocket me with
this beautiful hand,
robbing me of the few precious
things it hasn’t already stolen
not innocence, not love, not sex,
not any of those
but time, freedom and space
Nothing more than
the ticking clock, on my own desk,
in my room,