To live quietly
Alice Liefgreen
To live quietly
I die one thou-hundred-sand
times a day
to be something something else,
another else, all else’s to otherwise be a day
any day
all the minutes in the wait
to feel the earthly things
I wanted to find something to give
but not lightly
not the floodlight on the water,
but something some thing
the thing that speeds the plough and sets all fields on fire
love love love etc
If I lived loudly, I would have died only once
I would not be fading waiting between a hund-thousand-red
tiny deaths to be something else, another else, all else’s
to otherwise be a night
\ any night
I would not live in the negative space between hands
mistaking blood-close brick walls for my own skin
and ghosts ghosts would cease to go through me
asking for new words, a warm body
and less blue, less blue in everything
I am telling you, my membrane is blue, and if I spit
another self,
all selves, I will grow them teeth, to
chew the partition between my inner worlds
and the next, so that blue blue blue etc.
so that you can breathe river water and not be absorbed
by the ground so we can otherwise be a day
any day all nights
all the minutes in the wait
all the things when
everything is as far as here
I could have chewed the wind
Alice Liefgreen (she/her) was born in Italy from an Italian mother and an American father. Growing up bilingual, she moved to the UK at the age of 18 – and has lived there since. Currently, she is completing a PhD in Cognitive Science. Her work appears in the Creating in Crisis anthology by Polari Press, and in Queerlings Magazine issue 2. Website: www.liefgreenpoetry.com.
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