Eric Turner - Multiple Works

i really wish that writing this poem made me feel any better about myself

i’m either a mirror or a window, depending on how you look at me. sometimes i blow vape at bugs to prove that i exist. i haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. here’s a list of things that can change my mind: alcohol, nicotine, suffocation, heroin, xanax, rope, paracetamol, knives, heights, a cinder block tied to each of my ankles as i fall from a diving board, pistols, rifles, shotguns, slowly but inevitably time, a solid sleep schedule.

i feel like i’m talking all of the time but i never say anything. sometimes i make people laugh. no one knows anything about me that matters. here’s a list of things that matter: nothing, everything, everybody, somebody, nobody, something probably, great writing, good coffee, intimate sex, making children laugh, fixing the environment, being kind, skincare routines.

the concept of emotional availability gives me a panic attack. my parents weren’t as bad as i make them sound. they weren’t as good as i like to think they were. i don’t know how to let people care about me. here’s a list of ways i try to care about people: saying explicitly all the good feelings we only imply, holding doors, remembering their name, making them laugh, giving head, looking them deeply in the eye, trying to remember times i felt the way they’re feeling, being sincere when i apologize, working on things i apologize for, giving them little gifts, saying warm words, wiping tears from their face, telling them crying is a good thing.

here’s a list of things that have made me cry since i turned 18: my grandfather dying, my grandmother dying, my grandfather dying, my cousin being born, my cousin saying his first words, realizing that i was the problem, realizing that i wasn’t the only problem, a make a wish kid getting to meet john cena, rewatching episodes of scooby doo while high off my ass at six in the morning, when my stepdad tried to fight me, realizing how much louder my family was, realizing no one i knew grew up like that, realizing no one knows anything about me that matters.

the problem with me is that i would never let myself be supported but i want to feel like people would support me if i gave them the opportunity. i don’t want to ever give them the opportunity. i don’t think i’ve ever really felt loved. here’s a list of things that make me feel loved:

imagination (but like with spongebob hands)

i wish people would stop writing songs with your name in them because every time i hear one i imagine it’s about you and when the volume is just right and the sun has been down for a while i imagine that maybe i wrote them or maybe i’m writing them while i’m signing along and that’s how a song can make me imagine i’m in love with you which isn’t a difficult thing to do in the first place.  maybe because you’re easy to imagine loving or maybe because i imagine everything easily. maybe i’m an asshole because i will never allow you to be anything other than what i imagine you are or imagined you could be or will imagine you were. i like to imagine that this doesn’t make me a horrible person or boyfriend or girlfriend or partner or friend or whatever.

i wish i could ask you every question that i have for you and i wish i could get a real answer out of you because then i wouldn’t have to imagine and i could know you for who you really are which is what i imagine i’m imagining when i have to imagine the answers to all of the questions i can imagine myself asking you. do you think you’ll ever be happy? are you happy now? is there a difference between now and ever? was there one before? will there ever be one again? she asks if i can imagine myself loving you and i say i can imagine myself saying that i do and that i can imagine you acting like it.

i wish that i could stop writing romance poetry so that people would stop asking me if i’m writing about a girl because i’m really good at making people imagine that my poetry is about my ex or my other ex or the other one or that it’s about this girl i know or it’s about some other girl or it’s about them or it’s about someone that they know and they’ve secretly written the poetry themselves. i imagine people wish i would say a name so they can imagine i’m writing about them or someone they love better. i imagine i’m good at making people imagine things. i imagine that you imagine me better than i am. i imagine that it’s obvious that this is a poem about myself. i imagine that it’s obvious that i’m lying all of the time.

i wish there was a drug that could make me stop imagining things because if there was i imagine i would get a full nights sleep every night and i imagine i would get a high paying job and i imagine i’d do well in it and i imagine i would be happier in life. i tried weed and whiskey and xanax and addies and marlbs and camels and parliaments and a lot of prescriptions and i’m still imagining things. i imagine i’ll die soon. i imagine i’ll die of imagining because i’ve been imagining so much my heart is all tired of imagining and it will explode soon, i imagine the infinite blackness, silence so silent silence can’t imagine the lack of noise.