Rachel McKibbens, βLetter From My Heart to My Brain / Letter From My Brain To My Heartβ
I. Letter From My Heart to My Brain
Itβs okay to hang upside-down like a bat, to swim into the deep end of silence, to swallow every key so you canβt get out. Itβs okay to hear the ocean calling your fevered name
to say your sorrow is an opera of snakes, to flirt with sharp and heartless things. Itβs okay to write, I deserve everything, to bow down to this rotten thing that understands you, to adore the red and ugly queen of it, to admire her calm and steady rowing.
Itβs okay to lock yourself in the medicine cabinet, to drink all the wine, to do what it takes to stay without staying. Itβs okay to hate God today to change his name to yours, to want to ruin all that ruined you. Itβs okay to feel like only a photograph of yourself, to need a stranger to pull your hair and pin you down, itβs okay to want your mother as you lie alone in bed. Itβs okay to brick to fuck to flame to church to crush to knife to rock to rock to rock to rock to rock and rock.
Itβs okay to wave good-bye to yourself in the mirror. To write, I donβt want anything. Itβs okay to despise what you have inherited, to feel dead in a city of pulses. Itβs okay to be the whale that never comes up for air, to love best the taste of your own blood.
II. Letter From My Brain To My Heart
This house is dirty, but comfortable. Behind each crooked door waits the angry weather of a forgiveless child. I cannot help but admire this horrible power of mine, how each small thing can become a death: the lost house key. A spoiled egg. A howling dog. There is no prayer or pill for this. It is a ruthless botany; I might as well be buried in the yard. I have no one to blame. Not the mother who sang to an empty cradle. Not the Dog of Spite who bit my hand, just this long-legged sorrow who trails my every joy like a dark perfume.
You have my permission not to love me; I am a cathedral of deadbolts and Iβd rather burn myself down than change the locks.
