manuel arturo abreu - monday, june 24, 2013

7/28/2019 manuel arturo abreu - Monday, June 24, 2013

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1.



I try to think

about howoften I think

about howI treat people.



It seems 'utterly

unimaginable'that other

people in theworld think of

me.



Do other

people alsohave to kind of

will themselvesto think about

others?



Right nowI don't feel

capable of'remembering,'

'imagining,' orknowing the

difference.



It seems

strange, callingall of these

diverse mentalphenomena

“memories,”



like thinking

the differentspecies of a

genus are allthe same

species.



My love forclunky

expressions,repressed

for years, isresurfacing a

little.



I mean, try to

imagine yourtears floating

in the spacebefore crying.



Or imagine

being old andtelling someone

you've “run outof good days,

none left.”



Those bothseem really

awkward.



I feel

compelled byan empty,

formless gleewhen I'm online

sometimes.



that says “is

there anevolutionary

advantage toforgiveness?”



I think of

how much timewe spent

in one or theother of two

rooms.



In the future

when June isover I'll be

able to call thenext page a

poem:



All June

it rained.



For now, since

June is notover, and since

poems can onlyever be true,



it remains what

it always is:four words

and alinebreak.



Rememberinga field with

scattered balesof plastic-

wrapped hay.Like

marshmallows.



2.



My Nepalifriend told me

a story abouta kid whose

parents won'ttell him he's

dying.



Everyone else

in the villageknew the kid

was going todie, except my



friend, who

found out onlywhen he saw

him burning ona pyre.



This is the first

conversationabout death

that hascomforted me



since a goodfriend I went to

middle andhigh school with

killed himselfon May 18,

2013.



I didn't get to

see him beginbecoming the

person hewould end up

being.



I feelabsolutely

stupid andempty, like a

college campusduring the

summer,



knowing it tookme losing a

good friend tobe able to say

“I for surewant to be

alive.”



I'm imagining a

panel ofdictators

talkingamongst

themselves



about what

advice theyshould give me.

Trujillo stepsforward and,

somewhat



coyly, says in

Spanish:“Never let

anyone knowhow much you

are suffering.”



My 15-y.o.

brother gaveme $50 when I

was in NYC.It felt bleak.



On 6/10/13I tweeted this:

“It is June. I am

tired of beingbrave.”

Anne Sexton



The other

person in thiscomputer lab is

using twocomputers

at a time.



Now try to

imagine thepain the body

feels in being'absent' for

surgery.



That's how I

feel: you hurtme, but mostly

you're back tobeing a

stranger.



thanksfor

reading.

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