What I Tell Myself Before I Sleep
BY JANE WONG
Lessons on Lessening
BY JANE WONG
I wake to the sound of my neighbors upstairs as if they are bowling.
And maybe they are, all pins and love fallen over.
I lie against my floor, if only to feel that kind of affection.
What I’ve learned, time and again:
Get up. You cannot have what they have.
And the eyes of a dead rat can’t say anything.
In Jersey, the sink breaks and my mother keeps a bucket
underneath to save water for laundry.
A trick of water is no joke. I’ve learned that.
Neither is my father, wielding a knife in starlight.
I was taught that everything and everyone is self-made.
That you can make a window out of anything if you want.
This is why I froze insects. To see if they will come back to life.
How I began to see each day: the sluice of wings.
Get up. The ants pouring out of the sink, onto my arms in dish-heavy water.
My arms: branches. A swarm I didn’t ask for.
No one told me I’d have to learn to be polite.
To let myself be consumed for what I cannot control.
I must return to my younger self. To wearing my life
like heavy wool, weaved in my own weight.
To pretend not to know when the debtors come to collect.
