Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets (23 page)

It will give me time to calm myself.

I begin and think of all the ways I could make a poem out of this—one that’s lively, hopeful. One that describes the risks of cutting my arms with each plate piece before they’re melted like ice by the tap water. One that’s about me but also about everyone that suffers, even if the suffering seems too big or fake.

It doesn’t seem possible; but maybe it’s just not easy.

AMERICA! I SING
to the tiny part of you that I call home. The square feet that I sleep upon, tromp upon, shower upon, sweat upon.

I sing in the morning, yawp! Yawp!

I ache in the evenings when I think of things that I may miss.

I yearn to walk barefoot in the grass like I did in the days when things meant little.

I miss the days when things meant little and things were all so big compared to me.

But, still, America, I have the little parts of you to love.

I stop and stare and contemplate leaves of grass. I hug your trees, I look on maps for creeks. I smile at men who fish off unnamed bridges into brown rivers.

I delight in the meals my mother cooks, begrudged, but at least I do not find your dead animals in my food, nesting in noodles and broccoli spears.

I delight in my father’s moodiness, his concern, as I go off to learn to drive with Derek.

I delight in independence!

America! You are too much for me to know. I will only see little bits of you. I will never know your thoughts. I will never know the depths of your depressions or the truth behind your mania. Just as you will never know me. I will always be too small. I will always need assistance.

But I celebrate the people who have sprung forth from you.

I celebrate the seniors who whoop, carefree, close to the new beginning. I envy them, thinking of how Jorie spoke so well of the freedom that seems like poverty to me.

I celebrate the geeks that don’t know how to dress right or walk right. The ones that say they don’t read poetry or listen to music. The ones carrying their weight in textbooks, studying for tests that will repeat for years. Studying the little music that makes our bodies work or the world work. I admire their complexity, their mysterious language, their awkward haircuts and inside jokes.

I celebrate the girls, who stroll through the halls in skirts and shirts and secret grins that distract me, fill me with lust and hope and secret grins of my own. There is nothing wrong with me. I am only reacting to bright sunshine; I am covered in skin that has become self-aware.

I celebrate the athletes who have some way to express themselves, even though the things they say may sound like argles, blurbs, murmurs, grunts. They yawp. They yawp!

I celebrate the people lost, looking for friends, losing them, making them. I look people in the eye and see all the faces turning away. I celebrate our shared shyness, the worry of seeing something honest in the face of someone else.

I celebrate Mrs. Berry for trying. Miss Tebler for trying.

I celebrate Dr. Bird, for cooing me through tough times, for being the part of me that hopes.

I celebrate Dr. Dora, who tells me to breathe and write and not to worry about worry. Who tells me I don’t have to pretend to be hopeful, who tells me I can be depressed, who tells me I can survive, not that I must survive.

I celebrate the hope of medicine and the hope that I will not need it, even when I feel like I need it. I celebrate the process of deciding; I celebrate the ability to take my time to know, despite yearning for calm during long nights of unprovoked anxieties.

I celebrate Derek, who will make new friends but—and I am sure of this—will not leave me behind or brush me aside. I am like his brother, but not. Important, but different.

I celebrate Beth, who will be my friend and reads my poems and tells me to cheer up when I’m teetering on the edge, but who does not tell me to get over it when I have fallen down. I celebrate all the possibilities of our friendship and how we have all the time and space to figure out how much more it can be.

I celebrate Jorie, who lives, suffers, sends me photographs of trees, tells me when she’s sad instead of assuming I do not need to know her weakness. I celebrate the ashes of her pain box, kept in a new box in her apartment, with the words on the outside:
I answer that I cannot answer.

And I celebrate all the people who read the
Amalgam
and talked about it and shared it on the Internet. I celebrate them because they celebrated Beth and Roy and all the work they did. And even me—they sang of me! Were surprised by me, felt they’d discovered me. Uncovered me. Remembered me. It will all fade in September. I will go back to being just a face in the hallway. But I sang for a little while and some of them heard me and felt enough to say they felt something similar.

I cannot ask for more, America! I cannot ask for anything! I only wish to wake each morning with enough strength to sing!

In my own voice, I sing!

Of my self, I sing!

Yawp!

A billion thank-yous to the following excellent humans: my agent, Sara Crowe, for her warmth and belief. Margaret Raymo, for clarity, great ideas, and caring about the pieces as much as the whole. To everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for seeing potential in James, Jorie, and Dr. Bird and sending out their barbaric yawp with me.

Thanks to the Rutgers Newark MFA faculty for dedication, skill, honesty, and care. Jayne Anne Phillips, Tayari Jones, and Alice Elliot Dark each taught me very important things about writing and the writing life. Also, thanks to my wonderful fellow graduates Erin MacMillan, Scott Bowman, Chidi Asoluka, Paul Vidich, Amy Kiger-Williams, Saeed Jones, Aimee Rinehart, Mauro Altamura, Owen Duffy, Brett Duquette, Melissa Aranzamendez, Ryan McIlvain, and many, many, many others.

Thanks to the following journals for publishing my short fiction over the years:
Reed,
Granta,
Narrative, Stymie, Hummingbird Review, StoryQuarterly,
and
BestFiction.org.

Thanks to Kerri Arsenault for guidance and perspective during the long, spiraling query adventures.

Thanks to the English Department of Rowan University, particularly Cindy Vitto, Cathy Parrish, and Barbara Patrick. Thanks also to the Rutgers Camden University English Department, especially Dee Jonzak, Tyler Hoffman, Chris Fitter, Joe Barbarese, Lisa Zeidner, Geoff Sill, Bob Ryan, and Rafey Habib.

To my handful of patient, quirky, book-nerd, cartoon-loving friends: Phaedra, Tom and KC, Mike and Vicki, Buddy, Rob, Steve, Morgan and Declan, Tom, Daitza, Erik Smith, Sarah Brookover, and Andrew Panebianco.

Going way back, thanks for friendship, no matter the ups or downs: John Garretson and Sappa James. I root for your happiness.

To Colin, Ed, Marcy, Mike, Chris, and the rest of the Grooveground crew (past and present) for allowing me to commandeer the same table and chair for three years (and counting).

Thanks to Kathryn Kopple, Tracy Strauss, Louise Tolmie-Pollack, Mike Scalise, and the entire Breadloaf Experience (which is not a Jimi Hendrix cover band that exclusively plays the Breadloaf Writers Conference).

Thanks to Rick Moody, for inspiration as well as for listening and responding when there’s so much music that would be more fun to listen to and talk about.

Thanks, Alicia Bessette, for knowing the importance of sunlight.

Thank you, Matthew Quick, for advice and guidance, honesty, disagreement, forgiveness, ideas, support, and a thousand other things that cannot be easily summed up.

Thanks to Dana Harrison, for strength, brilliance, sarcasm, exasperation, and being a true, unapologetic book nerd.

A trillion thank-yous to my parents; to Rin and Fred; to Lynne and Bill; to Dave, Mike, Mat, and Laurie, and to the rest of my family.

An extra and infinite thank-you in the form of a photograph or a song or a hug to my sister, Rin. She’s the best person to drive around New Jersey with because she knows when to slow the car down so I can take photos of rust and decay and trees. That and a bunch of other reasons that do not need to be typed here.

Thank you, Sable, who can’t read this because she’s a dog.

Thank you, Dean-the-bean, who can’t read yet but will learn soon.

Finally, to my wife, Laura, who believes and supports and reads and edits and questions and, most important, still laughs. Thank you thank you thank you! Let’s keep laughing.

E
VAN
R
OSKOS
’s story “Conspiracy of Males” was chosen by
Granta
for their New Voices online feature.
Narrative
named him one of their 20 Best New Writers. He has had stories in
Best Fiction, StoryQuarterly, The Hummingbird Review,
and other journals. He attended the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and completed his MFA at Rutgers University Newark in 2009. Visit his website at
evanroskos.blogspot.com
.