A Tyrant Seeks Conclusion in the Known Self Poem by Emily Kendal Frey

In California we went to the dive bar and I lost my wallet

I remember falling into it

And maybe kissing against someone's garage

I fell on city sidewalks

In California and other places

The trees looked at me tenderly

I'm guessing

You do not love me because your mom did not love you

I understand the equation

Meanwhile, I make a butter fire in the kitchen

Two times I heat the butter for the eggs

Both times I burn it

Just observe, I tell

My students, describe what is

The woman next to me on the airplane

Moves pictures from her wallet to her pocket

In case we die

I cry with my eyes closed and the Sprite goes by

The unconscious drives us to master

The childhood situation

I wonder if there are spiders

Here, in the carpet or between the seats

A place with bugs is so

Much more friendly

The book I am reading tells me

Ours is an earthbound crisis

That until we cease to dominate

With doing, we will fail

At being

My fingernails

Are the color of rotten peaches

On Orcas Island there's a stone tower on top of Mt. Constitution

Some days you can see for miles, the many

Mountain ranges and pine-crusted bodies

In my mind

I practice dying

I throw myself over the edge

The plane is making its way into the streaking

Sun of this country

In Mexico I slept in a clay structure facing the ocean

I could hear the wind constantly

I bought you a tin heart with a hole in it

I brought it back in my backpack

In bed you said Don't make fun of me

When I'm old, okay?

When I think of your face

I have to think of me

You are holding my knee

And now I look into you

Now I look up and face

The abject fear

I am an animal

The bedroom is trees

Go limp a voice tells me

When a person passes me on their way to the restroom

I pretend they are the kindly face

Of god

Look deep into the eyes

Of the divine

It's so beautiful isn't it

To believe you are looking

At the future