Essay on Submission

George Abraham

Having ebbed in the disbelief of it instead of its weight.

Stone-tiled the floor the blood a trickling fire confessional.

Here the ocean metaphor refused.

He tore me shut & seeping no vastness.

To marvel or hide in.

Being told i don't exist i laugh with wounded teeth into.

The folds of his larynx a choir of bees rattle me.

Into myth less the mechanics of.

Throat than the usage the context neither divorced from combustion.

Of birth more or less i forgave him before.

He entered because he swelled for me i could never trust.

Myself in his hands but i did want.

Him.

Knocking leaning into the sliver of light he.

Missed the wastebasket he couldn't bear.

The sight of me i never slept.

With the lights off i don't know that.

History.

But i named it so it can't be.

Holy.

Or rather question.

Of distance my skin.

And cold waters my skin and woundless.

Skin i wade in the contradiction.

After i wanted only to be.

Held.

No.

Distance his hand & the small of my.

Back his hand & the lip.

Of a waterfall here i reject the landscape.

Its vastness i don't think.

We're looking for the same thing you.

And i you'd think olympus.

Would dethrone itself of goldenrod leaves i told you it was.

Blood did i claim it.

Mine i am built of avoidable.

Violences with one drop apocalypse.

The burning wilderness you can see yourself.

Out now histories like this cannot.

Be known let alone escaped even the one.

Where i set fire to my colonizer i can afford neither.

Reclamation nor reconciliation.

No.

Unfragmented i cannot give you an ending.

That isn't body lunar.

And concave staining instead.

The bathroom floor.

About This Poem

"In the era of #MeToo, the hyper-visibility of survivors' narratives shedding light on the unspoken truths of rape culture demands vulnerable and frustrating labor from victims of assault. However, stories of survival, especially at intersections like queerness and Palestinian-ness, are nonlinear. They are failed by both the culture that consumes them and the English language itself. How can I tell the story of my body, as it is unwritten by this language on interpersonal and national levels, in a way that is foremost accountable to my Memory and my Truth, even when it resists constructs of linearity, cohesion, and digestibility imposed on the language of Survival by oppressive Western systems? What is a system, at its core, if not the sentences that write and, hence, build it?"
—George Abraham

George Abraham is the author of Birthright, forthcoming from Button Poetry in 2020, and the specimen's apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). They are a PhD candidate in Bioengineering at Harvard University and live in Boston, Massachusetts.

Poetry by Abraham

the specimen's apology

(Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019)

"Post-Op Letters in the Field Between Us" by Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison

"Gesture with Both Hands Tied" by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

"100 Bells" by Tarfia Faizullah

January Guest Editor: TC Tolbert

Thanks to TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Tolbert about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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Inspirational Quotes Pictures

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Tuesday, January 29, 2019