June Twenty-Sixth, Twenty Twenty-Two by Alorah Welti
A lover for your life and nothing more. That’s all I ask this time of night, during this bright day. Toothache, jawache—they say I threw a jaw into the darkness and it became a jar. That jar became the first womb, and then the womb didn’t want to be a womb anymore so we aborted. We don’t get to make those kinds of decisions anymore.
I saw a video of a now-dead man and for the first time, I thought he was beautiful. Everyone has always loved his fame, and martyrdom, and angst. I always thought there were better things to love in people that are still alive. But I saw him today, talking about money and Madonna, and he isn’t Bob Dylan at all. I think maybe that’s the point. Forever immortalized in the nineties, his eyes had something in them that I haven’t seen in a while. I wonder if I would be happier if I lived in the nineties.
Train the dog, invisible or real. Let us discuss slip-collars. Let’s discuss my anger. Let’s sing it all in French, which will give it the appearance of being beautiful. Give me the ability to see beauty in things I am afraid of. I never know who I am praying to.
The caterwauling has to stop. It makes my jaw hurt. Someone made a loom to build the world on and they made miniatures for us, on this surrealistic playground. My brother will never try to train the dog out of fear that he won’t be able to control his own body. I swear to god.
I am afraid that if you are imperfect it will all be a wash. I am afraid of being seen. I am afraid that if I go to that place I will do things or need things that I am ashamed of. I am afraid of being less-than-civilized. I realize now that I think sex is uncivilized. And of course, I can fall back on my lack of context and my history of perfect longing. Perfect as in, for no one real. Perfect as in, can’t be rejected. Perfect as in, all mine.
“I wrote this stream of consciousness just after Roe v. Wade was overturned and I started working full time as a camp counselor to children 3-5 years old. I didn’t re-read it for 5 months. Looking at it now, it is collaged in such a way that accurately shows how I was feeling at the time, but it might be too unrelatable to other people, maybe only a treasure to myself alone.”
Alorah Welti (she/her) is a Minnesota-born feminist, synesthete, poet, and artist. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Allium, Cutbow Quarterly, lavender bones, Lit. 202, and elsewhere. She lives on stolen Mohican and Wabanaki land in Massachusetts with her family. Her Twitter is @alorahsky.