Prayer for the Icon Corner

Here’s to going to sleep early because there’s nothing to stay awake for,

here’s to waking up early just to invent a pocket of solitude in the day.

Here’s to washing down four Advils with a pot of coffee every morning,

here’s to the rash that spreads around my mouth like a bumpy red goatee,

makes me realize, for the first time, that people don’t look at you

when you look like hell,

makes me realize for the first time

that there is freedom in being publicly disgusting,

that there is privacy in suffering,

that there is a curtain that goes up between you and the world

when you’re locked inside your own shrivelled spirit,

that this is both restful and repulsive.

Here’s to puffing up the hill on the way to an early lecture, frost in my lungs,

here’s to my pageboy cut freezing into a solid helmet of auburn ice,

here’s to clean wet hair uncovered in winter that my mother said would give me pneumonia

but really only acts as nature’s hairspray, the cheapest

stiffest hold you can imagine.

Here’s to whipping out my phone to which I have saved

a picture of Tony Leung as my lockscreen,

here’s to his smooth stiff-held side part, the reels of film draped over

the perfectly tailored shoulders of his grey suit,

here’s to asking what time is it Tony

Am I gonna make it Tony

and here’s to Tony Leung, my only confidant,

who was always hurting like me for some ineffable reason

and still talking listlessly to a bar of soap,

pretending nothing had changed,

pretending he was really alone in the apartment.

Here’s to organizing concealer on my upper lip every morning,

rushing home between classes to scrub it off and readjust it,

squinting and trying to squeeze out a tear,

like Cameron Diaz in The Holiday,

except looking nothing like anybody’s Barbie,

and with no one finding the reticence charming,

because though I couldn’t squeeze out a tear, everything else

was always squeezing out in a mess, clamouring

to be heard, to be seen; no one looks up.

Here’s to that daily mantra, as I wish I could bite off my pinkie like they say you can’t even though

it’s the baby carrot of fingers, even my muddled brain still won’t 

let it happen, which is a shame, because

maybe if I came out of the bathroom wrapped in bloody tissue

I’d get a little sympathy, someone would see

that I’m not well; then whispering instead of biting down. 

Here’s to that daily mantra for the mirror,

stupid

ugly 

worthless

frigid

BITCH,

Here’s to coming out and posing; the outfit, at least, is good.

And here’s to, for once, being grateful for homework, 

for having to read 3 to 5 novels in a week,

here’s to projecting too far into a page and coming out

not happier but at least more understood,

calmer even with the coffee and the four Advils,

even though I’ll leave something pink from my colon

in the toilet later. Anna Karenina, knowing she’s being irrational,

knowing she’s lying to herself, that she is loved,

saying everything I ever think and feel

and then lying down on the tracks on the next page;

here’s to eschewing the Metro for the rest of the year

because I can’t stop thinking about Anna

blowing herself out like a candle as the whistle screams through her veil.

And here’s to moving out and moving on,

here’s to crampons over the ice every morning before sunrise,

here’s to birthdays I didn’t feel like celebrating,

here’s to French horns and baked apples and throwing the Advil out.

Here’s to giving an oral presentation about a Tony Leung movie,

in front of the class even though I had a rash all over my face.

Here’s to leaving.

Here’s to you.