cuttyspot:

[SARAH XERTA VIDEO RESPONSE]

in response to questions i sent sarah, about her book Nothing To Do With Me & beyond, she sent me this poem (below) & video (above): 

Interview

I don’t know who I am and it makes me want to cry
every time I try to answer this question,
and I thought maybe I could cry for the camera,
be meta-vulnerable and young-seeming,
but I can’t even look into the camera,
and what’s the point of you
staring at the back of my head?
What good does that do either of us? What power
exchange is there? Besides don’t you want
to see me move? It’s the only way I want
you to see me, the only way I can be seen, my body
in motion, a vehicle, the closest to an answer
I will ever get, even though attempts to capture motion
often ruin motion, and it’s true
I am tired of being ruined.
I am (not) tired of ruining.
I am tired of being captured. You cannot. Stop. Process: this is my process: survival.
This is my process: I’m not going to pretend
I’m not talking to you, but I cannot sit in front of the camera
and talk to you
and pretend I am okay with that.
I don’t do well with social norms, small talk and eye contact. It’s so intense, if I look
at you for more than a second
I will collapse, and what good am I
to anyone all bone dust on the floor? I am tired
of being all bone dust on the floor. We could be good to each other
if it weren’t for all these formalities.
Fuck a formality. This is my process: I strip the mask
and in turn this stripping becomes my mask.
My vulnerability is my mask. My body something
to cover my body with. You think my body is mine,
that I am letting you in on a secret,
but by the time I have told you I am already
gone, so far ahead of you, you cannot capture me, why do you insist?
Agency. When I write a poem I am spread eagle before you
and so what? I am not. Because what can you say
you know about me? Don’t lie. You do not splay me, you could not, your hands
not quick enough for these thighs. Your hands
not worthy of these thighs.
I won’t bullshit you
so don’t bullshit me.
Buy my book. Give me money. Lose sleep at night
because I am always too far away. In a poem it is important
for me to be honest
because otherwise I would not be honest,
and I can’t shove any more lies inside me. I am strong
the way roots are strong,
but slash the roots and the whole
tree dies. Does this make you trust me more
or less? I am always trusting less. You should always
be trusting less. Half these questions
don’t even make sense and I can’t decide
if I should be offended that you would ask me them.
As if I could fit into a sentence.
As if you could capture me.
What do you want from me?
You ask me who I am but it depends
on who I’m talking to and you haven’t told me anything
about yourself. You ask me to put my worldview into a sentence
and I wanna be like wow I feel bad for you. You ask me who I am
and I literally said fuck I don’t know. Do you
feel bad for me? All this projection of my inner life
is exhausting. I’m sorry. There are more cells
in my body than stars in the sky
but nothing I can do with any of them
to keep the night
from falling down around us. I
am falling  down around us. Who am I? Falling. Who am I?
Please, not us.

I recorded a poem for you. “Sad Circus Tents” from my forthcoming full-length collection: Nothing to Do With Me, University of Hell Press, spring 2015.