A Brief History of My Life Part VII

By Leigh Stein b. 1984 Leigh Stein

I can’t go to the east village anymore

because it is like going on a tour

of my worst dates. I get older, my heart

leaps at the sight of children

who don’t belong to me, I pronounce

everything like an Italian opera title.

I used to listen to songs and have someone

in mind for the you parts, now I just want

to be where the light is intense, I want

the kind of heat that kills you

if you drive into it unprepared. This

isn’t a metaphor for anything else.

When I speak of the light, I mean the light.

I go to church and sing along and feel

just as moved as if my faith were blind.

When I speak of the blind, I mean

the light. Truly the only things Lindsey Lohan and I

have in common are our preoccupations

with fame and weight loss, and yet I recognize

a kinship there, as if those two things mattered

more than anything. When I speak of

the darkness, I mean this living.

In a restaurant called Caracas,

I once spent fifteen minutes arguing

about an Ayn Rand book because

every time he said Anthem I thought

he meant We the Living and I said

what dystopia, what about the woman,

and he said what about the Home

of the Infants and I said what

Home of the Infants? What about

loving a man so much you’ll sleep

with another man in order to finance

the first man’s tuberculosis treatment?

Welcome to Russia, I said, and we

were looking at each other and then

not. I tried to picture Caracas, tried

to leave him for elsewhere, a fever.

Source: Dispatch from the Future (Melville House, 2012)

Biography

Originally from Chicago, poet Leigh Stein dropped out of high school before taking courses at a community college. She also studied at Brooklyn College and in the acting program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She is the author of the novel The Fallback Plan (2012) and the poetry collection Dispatch from the Future (2012).

Stein’s poems submerge stark emotional reflection within landscapes . . .

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