Joy Ladin


In the Water

You are in the water now.
The water you just had to spill, the juicy bits
That hydrate your world

And the bits that cancel it all. Love
Hangs in the water
Like a tampon string.

As if that weren't embarrassing enough,
Love is in the room, watching you pull away
From the future and the family

You think you've lost. But nothing
Gets lost in the water.
You are still responsible

For the heart that spilled
Each version of you
Into the unbelievable cruelty

Of everyone else,
And the shining, interchangeable
Layers of loss

Budding ethereally in creams and blues
In the water, in the heart of the water
Washing them back to you.

Survival Guide

It helps to be young
When you're coming to life
No matter how old you are,

To be unfinished, a mysterious statement,
A journey from star to star,
So as you get older,

Break out a box of Crayolas
And draw your family
Looking uncomfortably away

From the you you've exchanged
For the mannequin
They named. You should

Help clean up, but you're so busy being afraid
To love or not
You miss how fun it is to clothe yourself

In the embarrassment of life.
Frost your lids with midnight;
Lid your heart with frost;

Rub them all over, the hormones that regulate
The production of love
From karmic garbage dumps,

Then turn back
To the real you
You can only discover

By being other.
Voila! You're free.
Learn to love the awkward silence

You are going to be.

Mind

The mind keeps you warm
By punishing you into loving
Or leaving life.

How green you are.
You are the mind's
Perfect victim,

A narrow, impersonating hive
Unwinding along
The winding line

Between matter and mind. Pay close attention
To the mind.
It loves you, it loves you not.

How can you know?
How can you know
How far you've come,

How much you've burned away
Of the world you've made
Of the mind's emissions? Irresistible songs

Carpet with honey
The bedroom the mind
Chokes with glades

Of unsmelled roses
To keep you warm
As you are eliminated.

Half your mind is growing,
Half is smeared
Across the lips of the Earth

You haven't learned
To find. You take small steps
Through the smoke of the mind,

Following the anxious,
Sparkling smell
That is the fragrance

Of life.