Travelog by Lindsey A K Appell
I. KEY WEST: on thinking about emotional numbing
while taking a shit in a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom
Compelled to tell
you everything, bury
you under my shame
Confess with eyes straight ahead
Recite memory, recollect
in tranquility what feeling
felt like
I have this quirk
a natural resistance to pharmaceuticals
which means an overall dullness
a lingering pain
an unfamiliarity with that euphoria that should replace it
I have this tendency toward a dreaminess
a need to reach fabled heights in another’s hands
that I can never
never allow again to seep into my self-expression
and yet
you
silly, these stories we tell
Nurse sharks account for a large number of bites
because they are sedentary
lazy cuddling beneath the docks
the scary-cute things snorkelers approach
with assurance of their harmlessness
stillness so often mistaken for invitation
II. AMSTERDAM: on having a mental breakdown
on the platform while waiting for the train to Paris
a human fingernail on faith
assume fewer microbes
than a cat’s claw but maybe
prefer blood curdling
in veins to wearing madness
on the face
no cat ever left
a scar
What is it about a missed train?
don’t miss
step
these tracks cannot bear
this sort of weight
Meet at Les Deux Moulins.
Smile.
I saw a statue of Jeanne d’Arc
at Versailles today
III. UJI: on cormorant fishing (but not really)
Ancestor moss
cannot grow here
this bloodless desert
Remember the last tea
tree growing by
the rails
Remember the hands
the chisel
I wanted to be her soft thing
not too heavy to carry
desire inked and folded
delicate beneath
a sleeping head
not this
faded scroll
encased in glass
We hunger to snap
off sweetfish hooked
mouths to the boards
of the hull
but do not
and wonder
who made that choice
who
held back the tongue’s
starved plunge
“These poems were written on three separate occasions while traveling, and I toyed with and ultimately scrapped the idea of putting together a collection of poetry-written-while-traveling. This was not quite “travel writing,” per se, since it was usually just gay inner turmoil surfacing while I happened to be traveling, and hence never really felt like it would have a place anywhere.”
Lindsey A K Appell (they/she) is a queer writer currently living in Washington, on the traditional homelands of the Coast Salish tribes. Their work is varied and can be found in ANMLY, Tarpaulin Sky, The Graveyard Zine, Marrow magazine, and even James Joyce Quarterly. Find more of her work online at lindsaka.com.