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Spring 2023
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I am from the Origin
Sofia Carrera-Britten
→BFA FAV 2023
I don’t trace the divisions, but the spaces they create (12)
I was shifting in and out of a dream where my six fingers were raised to the trees,
my mother in the bed above/beside me
I am an animal with animals teeming
(swirling, shaking, trembling)
inside of me
I am from the Oregon*
Corazón, cora, khora:
how you are my heart
my friend
my land/space/place/countryside
“The myth of the faceless mother provides the very motivation for our exploitation of Earth, seen as ‘inexhaustible matter for things’”.
—Timothy Morton, quoting Emmanuel Levinas
In a way, I am just a restatement of my mother.
In a way, I do not exist yet and in a way I have existed forever
(my mother has not existed forever, she’s like 52).
I keep saying in passing that I am nervous
For my birthday:
She came into your bedroom (1) and said it felt locked and I couldn’t tell how close I was to her so I just traced a box around my clutched curled knees (think about it) and smiled.
I feel as though I know but when faced with the action I begin to doubt; a need for the cryptic and I become the mothman.
What light do I flock to?
alt: To what light do I flock? (2)
I did run to the window in my room when I noticed that salmon in the sky. You entered once and left and I made peace with a solitary (multiple) interaction of joy. (3) You came a second time and I, as in despite myself, still yearned to be your bride: the gauzy curtain between us and all.
The spiral staircase doesn’t scare me, but the thought of coming down it does.
I send emails to your friends at 11:52pm and wipe my piss on their bath towels in a moment of panic and inability to call out across the kitchen.
This one was really meant to be about me, I swear.
I swear.
I swear and it looks like a knot made from coiled white rope or strands of daisy grass and ripped (thus sealed) by two hands moving laterally:
they are together in their opposition.
At the same time I am becoming aware of my greatness, I am becoming aware of the greatness of all I have put aside for later and am now unearthing. Like pulling honeycomb teeth from itchy gums.
I love to scratch my itchy popcorn skin gums.
Maybe this is the problem.
Kira.
Purgatory.
I hope I meet your parents.
This is not a poem anymore (maybe it never was), it is just annotations, translations, and transcriptions.
[
I cook myself bitter greens and shovel them down my throat as an act of love, the way I settle in the scratchy grass. It’s not so much that it looks greener, but that it seems fuller--bugless. I wonder if I picked a bad spot or if the swarm is everywhere, you just can’t see it until you’re in it**.
I feed myself bitter greens like I kiss my right shoulder (will it taste different with ink?), but painful and
necessary.
I bought dandelion leaves for a dollar at Stop & Shop and I thought of Nicole. I was disappointed when my
mouth didn’t pull back--when they were not bitter, but balanced.
]
I’m trying to understand why it didn’t hurt (the way I wanted it to).
I know I’m getting eaten right now
= [This is succinct in my head/body.]
but I keep rolling my body over land-borne, land-bred driftwood. I wonder if I am allergic to grass.
This is the hill where I pretended to almost crash. I’m realizing now I haven’t taken my Zoloft.
Maybe that’s why this pen and its blue ink will never end. It’s a metaphor, Betty.
I am realizing there is driftwood tied to my body. I wish it was heavier so I could have noticed it sooner.
I don’t know where I am and I’m aware that owning that dooms to a world of absentee ballots and a scarcity of road maps.
Indefinitely.
It is time now. I can tell. It is the time.
P.S. I do wish this grass was softer.
*pronounced “origin”
**Luke 17:21
(1): Not every you is you, but this one is.
(2): Alt: How has your week been? Who are you now?
(3): Kissing, or praying, where each hand is one of ours.
I was shifting in and out of a dream where my six fingers were raised to the trees,
my mother in the bed above/beside me
I am an animal with animals teeming
(swirling, shaking, trembling)
inside of me
I am from the Oregon*
Corazón, cora, khora:
how you are my heart
my friend
my land/space/place/countryside
“The myth of the faceless mother provides the very motivation for our exploitation of Earth, seen as ‘inexhaustible matter for things’”.
—Timothy Morton, quoting Emmanuel Levinas
In a way, I am just a restatement of my mother.
In a way, I do not exist yet and in a way I have existed forever
(my mother has not existed forever, she’s like 52).
I keep saying in passing that I am nervous
For my birthday:
She came into your bedroom (1) and said it felt locked and I couldn’t tell how close I was to her so I just traced a box around my clutched curled knees (think about it) and smiled.
I feel as though I know but when faced with the action I begin to doubt; a need for the cryptic and I become the mothman.
What light do I flock to?
alt: To what light do I flock? (2)
I did run to the window in my room when I noticed that salmon in the sky. You entered once and left and I made peace with a solitary (multiple) interaction of joy. (3) You came a second time and I, as in despite myself, still yearned to be your bride: the gauzy curtain between us and all.
The spiral staircase doesn’t scare me, but the thought of coming down it does.
I send emails to your friends at 11:52pm and wipe my piss on their bath towels in a moment of panic and inability to call out across the kitchen.
This one was really meant to be about me, I swear.
I swear.
I swear and it looks like a knot made from coiled white rope or strands of daisy grass and ripped (thus sealed) by two hands moving laterally:
they are together in their opposition.
At the same time I am becoming aware of my greatness, I am becoming aware of the greatness of all I have put aside for later and am now unearthing. Like pulling honeycomb teeth from itchy gums.
I love to scratch my itchy popcorn skin gums.
Maybe this is the problem.
Kira.
Purgatory.
I hope I meet your parents.
This is not a poem anymore (maybe it never was), it is just annotations, translations, and transcriptions.
[
I cook myself bitter greens and shovel them down my throat as an act of love, the way I settle in the scratchy grass. It’s not so much that it looks greener, but that it seems fuller--bugless. I wonder if I picked a bad spot or if the swarm is everywhere, you just can’t see it until you’re in it**.
I feed myself bitter greens like I kiss my right shoulder (will it taste different with ink?), but painful and
necessary.
I bought dandelion leaves for a dollar at Stop & Shop and I thought of Nicole. I was disappointed when my
mouth didn’t pull back--when they were not bitter, but balanced.
]
I’m trying to understand why it didn’t hurt (the way I wanted it to).
I know I’m getting eaten right now
= [This is succinct in my head/body.]
but I keep rolling my body over land-borne, land-bred driftwood. I wonder if I am allergic to grass.
This is the hill where I pretended to almost crash. I’m realizing now I haven’t taken my Zoloft.
Maybe that’s why this pen and its blue ink will never end. It’s a metaphor, Betty.
I am realizing there is driftwood tied to my body. I wish it was heavier so I could have noticed it sooner.
I don’t know where I am and I’m aware that owning that dooms to a world of absentee ballots and a scarcity of road maps.
Indefinitely.
It is time now. I can tell. It is the time.
P.S. I do wish this grass was softer.
*pronounced “origin”
**Luke 17:21
(1): Not every you is you, but this one is.
(2): Alt: How has your week been? Who are you now?
(3): Kissing, or praying, where each hand is one of ours.