The Gin In A Bottle

My mama told me I need to have kids

And a husband who drinks no gin but believes there are djins if you ever walk out the door wearing a thin-

Lacy veil on top of your body, and if it glimmers in the sun, you might as well walk in the corner streets of Sin City

The husband would have to tell me when to wash the dishes

At around 6:00 PM or 6:16

Never at 20, it’s a sin, you see

The soapy water turns my fingers ashy and white and old and wrinkly

And I never die of anxiety in the shower because my fingers never get wrinkly there.

It must be the long hours I take washing the china plates, and it seems that after every meal there are ten-

More dishes to clean after you’ve spent two hours preparing them

God, I’m in a rat race, it seems!

But my mama told me not to get a job

Just be the mother, but no landlord

You prepare meals for your kids before school, and you fool nobody if you wear an all-black outfit to hide the fat under your suit

Don’t treat fabric like armor; it’s too late, people see you as you are

My mama told me my aunt saw my cousin at McDonald's

I remember us as kids, we would run in a field of roses and thorns; they never threatened us, they were so gentle, threatening just for show, just like us

She would tell me part of her dream was to not turn out like her sister

Yes, you see, her sister had a plain face but was pretty enough to get married, but she’d never gotten the chance to hire a babysitter

Oh, the horror, you see. She stayed living with her parents until the eggs inside her solid Joan of Arc armor fried, and the shame was pressed into soy sauce

I don’t care if you love soy sauce. Nobody likes a soggy fried egg, and apart from this

Just think about the brown diluted sauce dripping out of her slowly like a dry tap at the Vatican, the lingering draught, that is horrible!

So my cousin married a man who believes in djins and doesn’t drink gin, and their wedding cost them a fortune,more than an old bottle of wine, yes, you heard me

And she had two kids, and my aunt saw her sitting at McDonald's getting a Filet-O-Fish, sipping on an overly sweet dream and not even gagging at it

Turns out she gained 150 pounds and hid her body in a thick veil of black

Don’t treat fabric like armor; it’s too late, people see you as you are

My aunt told me I need to get married

She said she knew a guy who believes in djins and doesn’t drink gin

He’s twice my age, is getting bald, and makes minimum wage, but would treat me like a princess in the first few weeks of our lives

I said, “Please tell me, where is he?

I’ve been dying to find an exquisite specimen since my birth, since even before I was ever born, this has always been my sweet cemetery dream.

In a valley of dreams, I was covered in sweet soy sauce thinking about him.”

She said, “I will give you his number, and just hurry up before your eggs don’t even get the opportunity to get fried,

But instead, they die. Oh yes, they die!”

I thought about that, but as I looked at myself in the mirror, I realized how skinny I was, wearing a crop top made out of Jesus’ cloth. It’s not ancient, it’s vintage, it’s in

I am a trendy, pretty little thing, you see

But God damn, it’s true, sometimes I can’t stop thinking about marinated eggs, and I can’t see myself biting into a soggy fried egg, you see

I sometimes catch myself in different lights to see if there are any lines, perhaps of sorrow, of sadness, of another tomorrow where I give a f**k about all of it

Sometimes I remember there is a sense of electrical wires running through me

Perhaps somewhere invisible, something more medical, or spiritual, or educational

Like a sense of being in a vehicle with no driver, but somehow knowing that it’ll work itself out

It’s banal, it’s simple, it's human, it’s questionable, it’s debatable because of the armor, but I think I do own wires, and they might be a little broken every now and then because I run instead of drive

Oh God, is it sad?

The art of not caring, while I am in a room full of red lights.

And the bodies pile up one by one

Each one discarded but wrapped up in a beautiful little bow

For femininity

For subtlety and modesty

For the sins of the gin

Oh, if only my mama knew I was just a man, who took more than a sip

Standing naked on a balcony of wretched, continuous blessings

All of my own doing

Reviews

[Vol]

Lana,
Would it not be heaven itself if all your exquisitely expressed thoughts, the lament of your soul, could never be written because humanity never discovered how to imprision everything we need to be fully reaalized? Do we not all have a Leonardo DaVinci in us, a Tesla, an Eliot, Faulkner, Michaelangelo, or O'keefe inside, crushed and cast away? It is the main hope of my Christian spirit that in the ultimate end of all things, it is the promise of God for the human soul.
Vol

[Lana]

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words. I appreciate the way you’ve connected my poem to the idea of untapped human potential and creativity. It's a beautiful thought that all of us carry some kind of genius inside, though sometimes it feels like it gets lost in the challenges of life. I agree that there's something profound about the idea that, in the end, our souls might be fully realized, whether through art, faith, or something beyond this life. It’s an inspiring and humbling thought.

[Vol]

Smile... :-)