Maria Gray

I May Be Stupid

It’s March so it’s not weird anymore
the birds are making noise but I’d be
lying if I said it didn’t scare me a little still
it’s suicide season and I’m a couple
symbolic preoccupations from chronic psychosis
I trawl the streets as if expecting to be hit
decline party invites one thing about me
I will not be there but thank you
for thinking of me it really does mean a lot
sorry I couldn’t make it I was too busy being an
agoraphobic freak who doesn’t know how to make friends
who are still alive but this time two years ago T texted me
for the last time while I was in the shower
it took months before I could stand
to sing in there again a habit which somehow
originated on the advice of a friendly female doctor
blonde-haired and freckled said call me Paige
I have girlfriends whom this has happened to honey
I’m so sorry wrote me a pelvic floor therapy referral
I was the youngest morning mallwalker that year
death rattled me like cobblestone against the cane
I may be stupid but I know I’m lucky
to have had what I had for the time that I had it
the verging stars passed through my eyes like needles
though already dead where they stood light
-years away spring arrived like spring arrives all chatter
-ing wrens and serrated rays of sun and seed I had
never seen anything stranger and I smiled as if happy