Erin Mizrahi

I was going to hear Judith Butler speak but I didn’t instead I ate a salad and returned some things from Amazon and I think she might’ve liked that how casually capitalistic my absence came to be and absence always means It’s all my department’s been talking about Judith Butler is coming! Judith will be joining us for happy hour! here’s a reading list of books to read to prepare you for the event of Judith! I’ve met Judith once before in a bar in New York off of Washington square I asked her to take a selfie with me and she said No so we just took a regular photograph once when I was drunk I shouted I wish Judith Butler was my daddy! and my friend said, She’s already everyone’s daddy! and here I am giving an account of myself I’m finally ready to birth my dissertation I’ve been carrying it far too long I’m eager to see what strange bloom comes to be when the new recruits ask what year I am I’ve learned to stop saying 7th and start saying final I’m in my final year and I’m not sure that sounds much better maybe I should’ve gone to her talk I bet she said some stuff about Kafka and violence and law and I suddenly can’t stop thinking about gender I heard this poet read some extra dimensional stuff about gender she said she had to commune with another species before writing and it was wild and full of sadness even her name was poetry Marsha de la O A whole alphabet of tendrils you said let’s do something whimsical I said let’s go look for Joshua trees in places other than Joshua Tree and it’s possible I missed the point but what a beautiful detour I’ve been thinking about how “idk” could just as easily mean I DO know

and I half expect all words to suddenly burst into flame am I performing my social construction? are we undone by each other? I wrote a poem about great literature and cock and it was referred to as my “first mature work” my therapist called me a romantic masochist with annihilation fantasy and I still don’t know what that means I’m increasingly surprised that people want to hear me talk about Derrida which is like super Derridian but if I look at you and you look back Is that a poem? and I’m somewhere between constantly-anxious-about-the-future years old and puts-on-moisturizer-before-bed years old I’ll rewrite whole sentences to hide the fact that I can’t grammar and I’m certain hell is people over thirty trying to explain virtual currency You see I dreamt of words when I was young sometimes I want to add a “ue” to the end of young so it reads like tongue yongue I wrote about power and drag in the desert I stood there staring at the sky like I was waiting for the moon to hatch you whispered Persephone into my second mouth I whispered desire is construct and we’re all subjects of desire then curled into the flower kingdom of your chest are we deconstructing? I called you a method writer because you wrote about the desert mood and it made you moody I’ve decided I’m over bras What I want is a bra that recites Kathy Acker when touched I’ve gone in search of a whole language I once left your mouth what I found were rivers in every direction rivers What I’m trying to say is in spite of everything Wildflowers