sisyphus

by Alexandra Weiss

 

I

grandpa laughs

“i was the same at your age”

calls me sisyphus

and send me on my way

another crisis averted

and the avalanche stops for a minute

 

but with all that snow in my head

shivering

nothing seems truer

than digging down in spirals and

before too long the crashing starts again

 

i knew even then that it wasn’t a compliment

 

rituals hardwired in, inescapable

text goodbye before you get on the plane

if i don’t cry, ashamed but compelled to act

like it will crash and cause a scene

then it will

take your hands off the wheel

headlights off, tempting fate &

drifting down the canyon

under a full moon pregnant with worry

possessed

the only thing keeping it up

is refreshing the flight tracker and

checking the speed, the heading, the altitude

 

tunnel vision doesn’t block out

the futility of all this ebb and flow

but i can’t stop searching for an exit sign

trying so damn hard to find the door

until every tired nerve fizzles out

and i become ungrounded too

all uncertainties and shifting

and thrash in the currents

and drown from exhaustion

 

the mole gets bigger and swallows me whole

typed and printed on the coffee table

“you’re supposed to sit for twenty minutes every day

look at your freckles and read this page

and don’t fight the tides”

let them sweep you out to sea

in twenty minute increments

 

instead of pouring through news stories and

medical journals for something, anything to

tell me definitively that i’ll be okay

regardless of the answer to

did water go up my nose in the bath?

but there’s only data and uncertainty

news stories about summertime and sudden death

a picture captioned “the brain eating amoebas

are not visible in this view of the Mississippi River”

 

i’ll move past it eventually

if only to the next thing

skipping stones telling

the next ghost story around the campfire

bringing up the shadow of another worry

i thought i’d outrun

 

a frightened bird

hiding from the wind under a rotting eave

i will die no matter the tricks i pull

and this will mean nothing

 

but you promise that

even though you can’t tell me

it’s going to be okay

(reassurance makes it harder)

that it’s okay right now

and i’m not shaking anymore

and the bed next to you feels sturdy

 

and meaning trickles from the faucet

when i am alone in the bathtub, evening coming on

i feel tangible,

breathing

flesh

and it is such

a relief

to be solid

 

II

 

still

 

every time we eat red meat

i think about misfolded prions

reshaping our tissues

so when we do it feels like

more than food

it’s proving that i can

 

that i don’t have to listen

to the story in my head saying

this can of condensed milk

might carry botulism

invisible, suffusing the flan

i know it’s not reckless

to eat

it’s survival

but it feels so

dangerous

 

she’d tell me it’s normal

and bring up overdiagnosis

and maybe it is normal

to feel trapped when you realize

halfway through putting in the laundry

that there’s a band aid stuck to

the inside of the dryer door

 

but it can’t be

to spend hours in the middle of the night

researching BSE cases

and remembering over and over

that time 5 years ago when i was at a corner grocery and

the butcher sawed open a cow skull and how if i could smell the bone dust-

so if she’s right, why do i feel like

people will think i’m crazy if i try to explain?

 

remember: “you’re a rubber band that’s too tight

you need to practice stretching out”

 

that was the first time in almost a year

maybe this time i’ll make it farther

before the rubber band breaks