Headaches

By Isabel Marks

Here’s the only poem I’ve ever written that is good but not about someone I still talk to. Enjoy!

are you too polite to tell me that I’m crying?
my cheeks are so flushed that I see pink
when I stare at my reflection in the window
behind you.

your lips are parted just enough for me to
see you biting your tongue. be careful, that
will hurt like a motherfucker if it starts bleeding.
poptarts and the hemorrhage, please, 
and all of my poems are about you.

forget all the poems, all the paths lead to you.
i am in a fucking maze where it’s you or a
blockade, baby, and even though we haven’t talked
in a year, your ghost gives me headaches.

i’m still angry but i don’t know how to do that.
add that to the list, teach me righteous
indignation and clean logic? i have to stop
buying child advil. because no, i still can’t 
swallow pills.

Performance

Process

I wrote this poem in bits and pieces. The first few lines were written over the summer, and then I let it sit for a few months. It felt unfinished. The relationship it was about doesn’t have any real sense of closure attached so I just assumed that the poem would stay that way. A few months later, I was frantically trying to gather up poetry to bring to my mentor Elena and grabbed this piece on a whim. Her encouragement pushed me to keep fiddling. Now the poem is not about a relationship lost but about a relationship I didn’t know how to lose.