Cento from “F I N D I N G S”, “FRATERNITY”, “On Alcohol”, and “On PrEP or on Prayer [“spare us your burial rites”]” by sam sax & The Undying: A Meditation on Modern Illness by Anne Boyer
Spare me the lecture on the survival of my body. To have a body means you will not always see what has happened to it.
I’m trying to understand pleasure. There are people who feel bad in their bodies and do nothing about it. The exhausted are always trying. I’ve been drained, rearranged and then mangled by loss.
We were never able to be happy when not together, and this is why we always found ourselves together, sad, and in bed. Arms desperate for the other. I’d get over a problematic love, told myself one story so I wouldn’t have to tell another.
I’ve just always hated it when anyone suffers alone.
Spare me the lecture on the survival of my body. To have a body means you will not always see what has happened to it.
I’m trying to understand pleasure. There are people who feel bad in their bodies and do nothing about it. The exhausted are always trying. I’ve been drained, rearranged and then mangled by loss.
We were never able to be happy when not together, and this is why we always found ourselves together, sad, and in bed. Arms desperate for the other. I’d get over a problematic love, told myself one story so I wouldn’t have to tell another.
I’ve just always hated it when anyone suffers alone.
Aura Martin is the author of the chapbook Those Embroidered Suns (Lazy Adventurer Publishing) and the micro-chapbook Thumbprint Lizards (Maverick Duck Press). Her poems have appeared in EX/POST MAGAZINE, Fahmidan Journal, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @instamartin17.