alexithymia
Anna Winham
you cannot taste your own tongue, i think,
or maybe only mine is tasteless. no
measuring stick on reality, i pour out
lies about myself: this is the miracle of language.
untruths/imaginations
freedom dreams/dreams of myself.
i build universes inside an hour,
inside a page, inside a tasteless brain. i cannot
imagine
why you like me: me i cannot imagine, or
imagine in infinite iterations.
words are slow. i am already
not what i was. i am always
practicing my loss of myself, spinning
words like enough lies will save me.
Anna Genevieve Winham writes and performs with The Poetry Society of New York. While double-majoring in English and Linguistics at Dartmouth College (which was the pits), she won the Stanley Prize and the Kaminsky Family Fund Award. She writes at the crossroads of science and the sublime, cyborgs and the surreal. As curious about your computer code as your existential dread, she flips from physics to fiction inside the same breath.
Letter to Marie Curie
Elizabeth Janey
I’m writing to tell you that I am well,
as I hope you are. Recently, it seems
the way hands move becomes more difficult.
I can see why you like to own cats, their
limber paws stretch toward paradise
Tell me your first steps on this day,
I walked to the threshold of my body
of atoms a house of life
the outside is beautiful I can see
it is simply unstable salts emitted rays
If I moved here to here have I truly
been a good keeper to those molecules.
Truly hope you are doing well Marie
do you, & I, think about losing god
particles shed from bodies of light.
Missing many parts, does your body hurt,
I cannot seem to cure the light leading
light to you. I hope you are very well.
For I am so very worried Marie.
For you & I, how does radiation feel
we are so
Elizabeth Janey is an emerging poet and interdisciplinary writer. She currently lives in Iowa City where she studies Psychology, writing, & Spanish. Her work has been featured in various publications, online and in print, including Fools Magazine & Spect Magazine. Find her on Instagram @elizabeth.a.j