By Chase Cate
“The assumption that Derrida always knows what he is talking about is not Derridean.” - Timothy Morton
How to map
the underside of weeping
the permeant fingerprint
he left on my amygdala
We are photographs
taken in a mirror
a kind of
inverted inversion
pulling the veneer
from our fingernails
when we can’t speak
The memory of my brother
-’s genitals sticks to me
and suddenly I am
In the shower
I am outside
I am under the bridge
I am in the branches
the tree in our father’s yard the one that isn’t there anymore
I am between my third and fourth rib
I am above not a body
I am only impermanent
How to make salient
what can’t be aggregated
tell me at least
how do you think about rain
how do the drops communicate — why
did he do it?
God was right when
he said I am fearful ly created
and why shouldn’t I be
Do you remember the day
she told me to brush my hair
and a leaf fell on my chest while writing?
Do you understand?
Good
we never were
for understanding
I only wish
I could grieve everything
at once
I only know
a wound is a wall
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Chase Cate is a first year MFA student in poetry at Colorado State University. Their work is interested in the cosmic, the mundane, the moving, and how we create meaning amidst it all. They have been previously published in Beyond Words and Literary Forest. When they aren't reading or writing, they love to watch movies, drink tea, and steal back small pieces of their time from the capitalist machine.
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