Self Portrait With & Without (after Chen Chen)
With a view of the Verazzano. Without health insurance. With my mother’s paranoia
and my grandmother’s fear of displacement. Without, until recently,
an old pair of hearing aids passed down from my brother. With an A in Art
& a D in Algebra. With my mother pleading, Go to nursing school
for Christ’s sake! With Tvars, an Ikea lamp I talk to before bed
about career options. With John, my father, who never let us
call him Dad, taking apart a donated upright piano and putting it
back together again in the basement for me to play. With being
the middle child of seven. With him dead on Christmas
later that year. With a new girlfriend, who calls me by the nickname
Woolly. With Vincent Van Gogh and Midwestern skies. With my first job
doing laundry at a nursing home. With learning, in the parking lot,
to suck cock. With a mother who said, You will fail at everything
except that. With Georgia O'Keefe and the New York Public Library.
With my mother, who before she killed herself said, If you go to art school
I will kill myself. With art school loans and survivor’s guilt. With making sculpture
where everything meant to stand up falls over and everything meant to stay together
comes apart. With thinking as I get older that I may never grow up
because I was fired, yet again, from another nursing job. With four ex-therapists
and one West Coast psychic. With a patchy resume, no safety net
nor any steady means of support. With the hair color Auburn Sunset.
With working as a personal maid for the very rich. With something
inside mutinous. With a fifth floor walkup and illicit roof access. With a view
of the Manhattan skyline. With a few stars through the fog.
With my mother’s voice saying, If you just go to nursing school
you will never have to worry about finding a job.
[
With a view of the Verazzano. Without health insurance. With my mother’s paranoia
and my grandmother’s fear of displacement. Without, until recently,
an old pair of hearing aids passed down from my brother. With an A in Art
& a D in Algebra. With my mother pleading, Go to nursing school
for Christ’s sake! With Tvars, an Ikea lamp I talk to before bed
about career options. With John, my father, who never let us
call him Dad, taking apart a donated upright piano and putting it
back together again in the basement for me to play. With being
the middle child of seven. With him dead on Christmas
later that year. With a new girlfriend, who calls me by the nickname
Woolly. With Vincent Van Gogh and Midwestern skies. With my first job
doing laundry at a nursing home. With learning, in the parking lot,
to suck cock. With a mother who said, You will fail at everything
except that. With Georgia O'Keefe and the New York Public Library.
With my mother, who before she killed herself said, If you go to art school
I will kill myself. With art school loans and survivor’s guilt. With making sculpture
where everything meant to stand up falls over and everything meant to stay together
comes apart. With thinking as I get older that I may never grow up
because I was fired, yet again, from another nursing job. With four ex-therapists
and one West Coast psychic. With a patchy resume, no safety net
nor any steady means of support. With the hair color Auburn Sunset.
With working as a personal maid for the very rich. With something
inside mutinous. With a fifth floor walkup and illicit roof access. With a view
of the Manhattan skyline. With a few stars through the fog.
With my mother’s voice saying, If you just go to nursing school
you will never have to worry about finding a job.
[