Sarah Certa was born in Germany in 1987. She is the author of the small poetry collection RED PAPER HEART (Zoo Cake Press, 2013), and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Northwind Magazine, Narrative Magazine, B O D Y, H_NGM_N, anderbo, and elsewhere. She lives in Minnesota. ---------
Down Into the Grass
It makes me sad that most of the men
I’d like to fuck are dead. And I don’t even want
to fuck my ex but last night dreamed
that I did, and woke up feeling sad, feeling
fat because of all the pizza
I ate yesterday, and I can’t help but wonder
if there’s a malfunction inside me, some switch
I forgot to turn on, or if there even
is a switch, if I’ll always
be fumbling along the cool dirt walls
of a cave, holding a white candle, thinking
about my friends, how much I love them and how much I wish
this love was enough, this green field, this gold sun, this
big sky love. I wish I were typing this
on a typewriter in the sky, or under it, I mean, that my hair
was straight and blond for a day, my nose
a little smaller, that I wouldn’t have to
plug in so many things
before I could use them. I think what I’m saying
is that I’m confused. And how couldn’t
I be, with all this hair on my legs, all this snow melting and talk
about guns? I want to know what it’s like
to live in a place I feel comfortable
living in, to say this town
is my town, and I live here, and wouldn’t you like
to come over for dinner? I keep thinking
about you coming over for dinner, looking at all
the books on my living room shelf, asking
what you can help with, since I know
you would ask, standing
in my kitchen in your bright green socks. I want to know
how those women on the porch in Montpelier
got to be so happy, drinking wine on a summer
afternoon without men, laughing
the way only women
can laugh with other women, a flock of birds
erupting from them over
and over again, how even the birds are laughing, their wings like arrows
pointing in every direction
except for back at themselves. But of course I am always
pointing back at myself, always so
concerned with what I’m doing or not
doing enough of, and this is getting
so existential, I’m so uncomfortable, it’s after 1 PM
and I’m still in pajamas, riding a horse
I wish was wilder that would buck me off
and send me flailing, rudely, would hurt me, wake me
up from this stupid dream about Love
and silverware, about sleeping in a tee-pee with you, Italian
dinners in the city and day trips
to the coast in our third
summer, any summer. I want to know
what it’s like to stay, to want to stay. I want to weave
scarves in my hair and pierce
my ears with peacock feathers, run my foot
along your thigh. I want to wear an apron and bake brownies, hand you a martini
when you walk through the door, put on
a black leather suit and show you
my round-house kick. I want
to make you hungry. I want
to be adored. I want to stop
wanting to be adored. I want to stop
stopping myself, slamming my fingers
in this oven door, and so I am going to stop here, on the longest
day of summer, even though you are a man
I’d like to fuck, which makes me
scared that you are dead, I am going to stop here and wear
a light blue dress made of cotton, and wait for you
to lift it like a cloud around my shoulders and push me
down into the grass the way no friend ever would.
It makes me sad that most of the men
I’d like to fuck are dead. And I don’t even want
to fuck my ex but last night dreamed
that I did, and woke up feeling sad, feeling
fat because of all the pizza
I ate yesterday, and I can’t help but wonder
if there’s a malfunction inside me, some switch
I forgot to turn on, or if there even
is a switch, if I’ll always
be fumbling along the cool dirt walls
of a cave, holding a white candle, thinking
about my friends, how much I love them and how much I wish
this love was enough, this green field, this gold sun, this
big sky love. I wish I were typing this
on a typewriter in the sky, or under it, I mean, that my hair
was straight and blond for a day, my nose
a little smaller, that I wouldn’t have to
plug in so many things
before I could use them. I think what I’m saying
is that I’m confused. And how couldn’t
I be, with all this hair on my legs, all this snow melting and talk
about guns? I want to know what it’s like
to live in a place I feel comfortable
living in, to say this town
is my town, and I live here, and wouldn’t you like
to come over for dinner? I keep thinking
about you coming over for dinner, looking at all
the books on my living room shelf, asking
what you can help with, since I know
you would ask, standing
in my kitchen in your bright green socks. I want to know
how those women on the porch in Montpelier
got to be so happy, drinking wine on a summer
afternoon without men, laughing
the way only women
can laugh with other women, a flock of birds
erupting from them over
and over again, how even the birds are laughing, their wings like arrows
pointing in every direction
except for back at themselves. But of course I am always
pointing back at myself, always so
concerned with what I’m doing or not
doing enough of, and this is getting
so existential, I’m so uncomfortable, it’s after 1 PM
and I’m still in pajamas, riding a horse
I wish was wilder that would buck me off
and send me flailing, rudely, would hurt me, wake me
up from this stupid dream about Love
and silverware, about sleeping in a tee-pee with you, Italian
dinners in the city and day trips
to the coast in our third
summer, any summer. I want to know
what it’s like to stay, to want to stay. I want to weave
scarves in my hair and pierce
my ears with peacock feathers, run my foot
along your thigh. I want to wear an apron and bake brownies, hand you a martini
when you walk through the door, put on
a black leather suit and show you
my round-house kick. I want
to make you hungry. I want
to be adored. I want to stop
wanting to be adored. I want to stop
stopping myself, slamming my fingers
in this oven door, and so I am going to stop here, on the longest
day of summer, even though you are a man
I’d like to fuck, which makes me
scared that you are dead, I am going to stop here and wear
a light blue dress made of cotton, and wait for you
to lift it like a cloud around my shoulders and push me
down into the grass the way no friend ever would.