All This Mess, It Doesn't Leave You When You Go

record skates on needle, needle pesters faulty groove

skipping, one would say, but in reality is not

hasn’t halted. don’t you call me static motion

linearity of sound has simply exited the chat

veered off by a needle that will not let up or course correct

this room is haunted, squinting, failing string lights crawled like vines along its walls. here a dazzle flicker, there an inky halo, emptied eye sockets after plucked out eyeballs

going in-out like a taunt

sound and light in tandem, trading their own versions of silence — the blinking, the skipped music

it leaves spaces for the rest to dip the toe

it’s like that old madness, the one that churns awareness out of streams of thought

rearranges them like an artful villanelle

blistered sounds made to make sense

lost a year of life’s worth of words in this room

records ruined one after the other

for the sake of a needle I would not change

this record player desecrating my loves

in the backdrop of all else breaking apart

still felt far from trivial

never learned to let go of iotas

when the ceiling chipped overhead it was scraped off with a blade

when the hinges stopped their nimble swinging they were twisted, cast off

when the parquet, it was cracked, we slathered wax over the gashes

bent and buckled bones mending craters in the wallpaper

patched the caulked window when it lift and lifted

cracked and cracked the gathering ice

never yet a home, never yet a comfort

but always tended to

the way this here soul never was

now, this

a sting of lights, a replaceable vinyl

are as ridiculous as ridiculous gets

iotas, of course, but cherished ones

those blinking bulbs

that stuttering music

those hollow repairs

it says ruination, spells collapse

still, it’s not the worse it has seen

this room it cannot let itself go while

something weightier commands the center

I ate a cyclone, thinking its wild and frenzied cycles might alleviate my staticity. instead the dust has been unsettled on encroached and static things

when I raised this bookshelf from the ground up, I was shedding homesick tears

over there, I curved, after months of frozen sorrow

cradled a cantankerous kitten where the poster curls up slowly

that there corner houses many a nameless secret

this wine-colored rug has soaked more than its share of blood

phantom howling paces all corners of this space

all this mess, it doesn’t leave you when you go

probably, I should have stopped the patching up when it crumbled

these things were never really threatened

something weightier pulls the center

it says:

find your own language

make your grief sing

make it make sense

turn it over

until you can hear again

until the words come to you easy(er)

this & this happened. wouldn’t recommend it

and when you’ve braced enough, lift that needle, unplug those lights, and please leave this goddamn room.

A. Martine is a trilingual writer, musician and artist of color who goes where the waves take her. She might have been a kraken in a past life. She's an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a Managing Editor of The Nasiona. Her collection AT SEA was shortlisted for the 2019 Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize. Some words found or forthcoming in: Berfrois, The Rumpus, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Metaphorosis, South Broadway Ghost Society, RIC Journal, Lamplight, TERSE. Journal, Gone Lawn, Truancy Mag, Crack the Spine, Confessionalist Zine, Ghost City Review, Rogue Agent, Boston Accent Lit, Porridge Magazine, Camwood Lit, Feminine Collective, Anti-Heroin Chic. Follow her @Maelllstrom/www.maelllstrom.com.