What do you want, Joan?

Klara Pokrzywa

— Only to be looked at through the eyes of the Lord

And that was always your problem wasn’t it your problem was that you could not be happy in a forest or a field / always looking for the camera. You will die onstage / crimes punishable by death or by girlhood / Little girl do you know what that means?

— yes I dove through each glowing window. i only wanted

To sow and not reap? do I have news for you. Well go on then give us your performance to die for: What are you, Joan?

— What I have always been: a blind thing that wants and obeys. O i had a myriad of ways to punish each
craving—a brain that burns, pixelated body always slipping off your screen Yes and i wanted to be good in
the way that comes after forgiveness / the way that would crush me. Lord I / dreamed of / I dreamed / I
of / such little faith / Yes I wanted to be good yes I the small bird the switchblade the hand of God

As above so / Do you know? What do you / no Joan—

— The one thing I never wanted— or, I am thirteen and my friend beside me is laughing in her sleep— or /
no, I am smelling the air conditioning, the pain retreating to a distant cul-de-sac in the suburbs of my mind,
and and—the one thing I—O the bombs I deconstruct each night. Cutting pink wires, no it was the blue wires
no

Well say it then: Joan the wannabe. Captive. Couldn’t make it / as it stands in a month no one will know your name or what you have done or

— Oh God silence / something to look forward to the grave smelling like coolness and dust, collapsing the overheated computer of my holy mouth

And as it stands

— and as it stands I am still feeling the light scorching the back of my brain i am

wondering
because after all I have done each thing they accused me of
because after all I have done each thing they accused me of
because after all—

I am only staring down some past self struggling to the surface / believing herself heavenbound
O I feverishly shivered in the glow light-sick or waiting to be revealed
and now just want an escape key deliverance from evil
the click of the lock / the keyboard
exit window down and out
why won’t I just / empty

Or— pacing the length of my room— asking myself the same questions:
Joan is this the end / was it all just a thrill
No memory of that adamant resolve
of joan wake up and go to war
I am / forgetting things again and / each second being forgotten
each sign pointing to yes forsaken me

yes light’s unthinkable square i said yes but / no one to say yes to
i am alone unless window

I / do you

what do you / ?

no i am alone no joan you are
i am I am
Joan you are alone / or

plummet.

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