Junkyard Sweetheart

When I see the article about the polar bears wandering into Russian homes I leave it open unread for a week and consider this trying. Because I am trying to be honest, I can’t say I am doing my best, or even trying my best, but at the very least, at my very worst, I’m trying. I wake up, and this is trying, by which I mean I am sad and yet participate in the requisite functions of my life, usually without audible complaint or demonstrative suffering, trying, for others’ benefit, to be polite, or (trying to be honest) because I am embarrassed to be suffering—but I also mean this, that I am sad and it is difficult, a trial, a circumstance that tries my patience, this sadness is so annoying, I’m so sad it drives me crazy. Like everyone else, I try to do the dishes, to remember birthdays, not to pick at my degenerate skin. Because I am female I try to fulfill domestic labors like cleaning out the fridge and unreciprocated kindness, I try to improve my appearance without making it evident I care about my appearance, I try to care about the right things while making it clear I am still trying, with my appearance, so that men might consider fucking me, and I should consider this (privately) the measure of my worth. And because I am American I try to keep up with the crisis de l’heure, with domestic politics and public displays of rage, I try to be productive, I try to remember reusable bags for my produce, to reduce my footprint, to check pronouns and my privilege, I try to do my part, to cause little harm, but because I am alive harm comes with the territory, the territory upon which I rent is stolen, the city gentrified, and all year an unseasonable heat that I, minor accomplice, have to try very hard not to delight in, short sleeves in February, sweating through Halloween, I admit it, for no defensible reason I still eat meat, still drive on occasion to the CVS down the street, I’ve been known to tell a joke that verges on mean, I’m trying, I mean it, to be good, to be good in a way that is not covertly gendered or self-serving, to be accountable, to practice virtue without announcement, to make at least half as good what I leave as how I found it—trying for you, inkblot, mirage, standing in the artificial dawn on cold tile, golden dew on a stick, first snow pawing at the window to get in.