January 31, 2023I’m Lying in Bed Now
after having taken an aspirin
and googling about my heart,
how it could be acid reflux or
a heart attack (big difference)
or a panic attack and it’s ice
in there, left side of my chest,
how ‘sinister’ etymologically
comes from “on the left side,”
the liberal side, my body un-
able to take all the politics of
this world, or not this world,
this country, how everything
here is split in half, and every
conversation binary, and it’s
as if everything is black and
white, or, no, it’s as if every-
thing’s vantablack vs barium
sulfate, the blackest black vs
the whitest white, no shades,
no greys, just these shadows
of manipulation, one of my
neuroscience profs who said
they did an experiment back
when they could still do all
the craziest shit on humans,
and the person was able to
give a jolt to certain parts
of their brain that triggers
different responses. And
they thought the subjects
would over and over keep
stimulating the area that
would give pleasure, but,
no, they discovered that
they loved it when they
would stimulate an area
that causes aggression,
the type of anger which
comes from a feeling of
self-righteousness, this
need, like a drug, to be
morally superior, this
craving that maybe we
all have. I say this to my
French girlfriend and she
says, no, it’s American
to feel and act that way,
that it’s part of our two-
party culture, that they
have more than forty
political parties, and
so they have complex
discussions, not us-vs-
them discussions, but
real debate, actual real
differences of opinion,
and she keeps on using
that word: ‘real,’ how
she is sick of ‘reality
TV,’ sick of the way
that the news here,
she says, repeats one
story a thousand times
so that they drill one
perspective into your
mind. And I’m quiet.
And she leaves. And
I’m alone. And my
heart is like kindling,
and in two days she’ll
leave me forever. And
I don’t know this. And
I don’t know anything.
Read by Betsy Baker
from Poets Respond