Sarah Bridgins: I Am Bored by Everything
Egg Bound
I am bored by everything
but death and romance.
I don’t know what to do
with anyone who doesn’t want
to kill me or fuck me.
I want to dance on
champagne legs,
fall in love with someone
I can live without.
Being this sad is an athletic endeavor,
an endurance test.
I have been bled
dry as a wasp wing,
left egg bound by grief,
giving birth to shards.
Mariana Trench
I am operating with a new range
of emotions that only exist
in the darkest reaches of the ocean,
among the eels and anglerfish.
You have seen their lights,
but I have felt their teeth.
I lie awake next to you thinking
I don’t know how to do this,
until the anxiety is enough to overwhelm
my system, short-circuit it to sleep.
It does not make you a coward
to be incapable of loving me.
I once saw a pigeon with a broken wing
stumbling along the sidewalk.
I felt so much love for it, this pathetic wounded thing.
I imagined everything I could do to save it,
then cried as I walked away.
There were millions in the city,
and it must have carried parasites, diseases.
I did not want to get them on me.
Sarah Bridgins lives in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Buzzfeed, Bustle, Luna Luna, Sink Review, and Big Lucks among other journals. You can read more of her work at sbridgins.tumblr.com.
