March 19, 2016

Getting It Out

(2016)
In dreams, it seems I am forever processing my shit. 
It is dangerous for I clearly lack the fundamental skill
at getting it out and on the table, so to speak.
The toilets are noxious and clogged
by the generations preceding  Or the bowl water
is level with the seat.  I can’t bear flooding.
The toilet is a hole in the ground and my baby blanket
is stuffed in, suppressing my desire to shit.
Toilets are in cramped school lockers
and no matter how I try, I can’t fit in.
Once, I was asked to perform shitting
in a high-school talent show, but I refused. 
Artistically-speaking, I have been constipated for years.
Sometimes the toilet is in a church pew,
or is in a bar, and the bartender insists
I have a few drinks first.  Usually, I am alone. 
At other times, there is a long, line ahead of me
of shitters, more secure and successful at detachment.
On occasion my relatives pull up a chair and watch.
It feels less like encouragement and more like ridicule.
From over the stall wall, Freud’s mistress throws
a roll of tissue. Coated in toxic waste, the sludge
is as catastrophic as intrusive thoughts. 
I wipe anyway, relieved to have at least for once
flushed some shit. Sometimes I just sit on the toilet and read
Alice Miller knowing it has all been for my own good. 
My husband doesn’t want me to analyze my shit. 
I took Zoloft to help me shit; my husband flushed it.
I need to leave him and can’t, because anywhere I go
there will be another sad, malignant toilet.

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