GIRDLED WITH THE GLEAMING: A POEM IN TWO PARTS
The Francis Colburn Gallery
February 10 to 19, 2026




Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, ✶ In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined ✶ On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. ✶ For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd ✶ Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd ✶ Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world”

I feel it pouring out of me, and I don’t need to be anything or be loved by anyone as long as the people that live in my heart as it shrinks are happy and taken care of by life. And I don’t want to be much more than I already am or already have been. I’ve seen too much and what is left in me is just pouring out not even as witness, but to live its own life. I used to think I was a hermit crab, but now I’m convincing myself of the shell. I guess this is for everything except me and everyone who needs me more than I need myself. So if you need a sense of humor or a sweet embrace or just someone to remind you to file your taxes then what else could I do better? To serve the world or just serve you? Not much.

I guess things just get less serious as you go. I was a hedonist at 19 and I guess my roots run deep. Most of us are inclined to impulse. But if that’s all we have to carry us through everything then I am not one to dissent. Maybe a good sense of humor is not the only response to first world dread, but can it be the sexiest? I’m finally starting to realize how dangerous sexy can really be. Not like Icarus danger, but more like Alice or Dorothy. apathetic desire. lotus eaters. 

Midnight has a particular hold on me, but it always gives me the fervor I wish for in daily life. The disembodiment of real life and words I could weigh myself to speak to others. I really I am a lotus eater after all. I used to think I was so many people all at once. I used to wish I could control what everyone thought of me, and I don’t know if “used to” is the right phrasing because I have no memory of ever relinquishing it. Please don’t take this as admission of guilt. I think everyone can already tell that I’m up to no good but want to believe otherwise for my sake. I guess I can’t remember to which what effect Leo compared this feeling but I’ll remember to ask him for your sake. I think I’m starting to fall in love with you and the world too but it’s out of my control.

I think my Moms can already tell how my life is going to go and even with their fears, it’s comforting to know that even when I lose them they will have known what will happen and what has already happened to me and as their eldest daughter I’m just reenacting their utopian lesbian lives and I know that Elle would be supportive of that for me but again I’ve not relinquished this last dissociate impulse, it simply is spilling out of me.

These are ramblings to the better adjusted, but I swear to God they are my livelihood. Emma gets that. Like me, all that matters is what you find courage to say. I’m afraid nothing is really mine, not even my body or my soul, and certainly not this and not you. Trina says that’s life – I wish she would think weaker of me as I begin to cry. Then again it’s no surprise to me that she does not. I think she is a beautiful woman. I think most people are so beautiful. If that’s consolation to you it feels like reason enough for living to me. Just to see how beautiful everyone could become, and how expansive love can grow for those of us who cling to it without expectation or spite and without jealousy—So certainly not me. My love is raw.



Now these minutes do no longer relieve my anguish and catastrophizing. The anti-climax of leaving work, nor morning are optimistic. Weekend pleasures diluted by waiting and secret kisses I left for safer pursuits. Bar bathrooms no longer hold illicit substances and 3 in the morning feels indiscernible from 2 in the afternoon. What luck then, to have lived to witness all the beauty of earth’s splendor only to forsake it for safety and to sacrifice it at the whim that life might get better knowing it will not. Never have I felt more inclined to lean towards nothingness; to that void and simple emptiness which provides resolution unlike much anything else. It will not be mine, for my body will remain intact, and I will never suffer as if I could ever bear children or hope to conjugate my life with purpose beyond what I can muster to assign it. How fast does the magic spill out of us? How fast does the toil dilute as if mold on sweet limes and the scourge on sweet virginity, reclaimed by the universe’s rule of connection in all that is right and all that feels like one day, it might at least turn for the better. The Commandment is to lose it. The edict is that it spills out of you and picking up that compassion is not tidying but acknowledging that I am a lotus eater. I am a cleaner I am a caretaker. I don’t bleed and hold no fancy in romanticizing extrusions. No, I’m more like a dentist’s x-ray tabs: all bite and all clench.

Do you keep your old love letters? If not, why? If so, why? It all feels as though these people run up on each other, words in margins. but I wish I could experience you purely, and without my moms’ annotations or my ex-girlfriends’ critiques or my brothers’ instinct. That’s all I am when I belong to others. I am just “women-made” and “made for women.” I have little interest in belonging to myself at this hour anymore and just like the shadow of the moon I find myself marching onward and watching others march beside me. I become curious whilst marching. Wondering about things left unsaid: sex dreams and dinner party conversations that know no end. I wonder how much more meadow there really is, and I’m really starting to believe it’s not much.

This really is the most boring party ever but that’s most likely the intention and I hope I’m not just coming across like a conspirator even though I am certain of a conspiracy. Which probably just aggregates the complications of all of us bogged down on life and relishing in this muck. I like to think I’m different though: I am giving up on the idea that compassion is enough. So now I don’t know what is essential or what salvation might look like. Probably just an idea that keeps us going like moths and flames. And even though that’s generally heartbreaking, I’m not sure it’s that serious. We’ve all been through this countless times already. We’ve all been flies and we’ve all been beautiful and now it’s just counting down the minutes or singing about refusing to count. And that’s what makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry. This is only all important because we haven’t made it back to Troy. This is all just mythos and life must be some sort of distraction because if dreams could be understood it would mean that consciousness holds precedent. Since we don’t, I’m beginning to convert to solipsism and it’s been a long time coming and I’m starting to hope that no one will read this so I might stay safe in my preconception. Oh my God I’m feeling quite religious and ready to test my faith.

 
























































 

This is a Turing test. Please consult the provided scripts when questions are posed to confirm your humanity. Please speak clearly and succinctly: 

What is your name?

Gravlax forms under Swedish ocean sand and the waves crash onto its winter skin. What are your coordinates? 
THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT 

Flower of nowhere blooms in the gut of Amtrak train cars. Doors are getting frozen shut. Sick child lays across its seats with sorry eyes. The whole thing reminds you of some memory but that’s neither here nor there. What are your siblings’ names? 


Japanese myth of past life soulmates contours your oblong face. “A beautiful misconception.” Kills me and fingers shake across my retracting face. What is your favorite color? 
THE EYES OF MY LOVER 

You are holding your child in your arms. It took you many measured interactions to reach this place. It took dynamism. To which sex are you attracted? 
THAT WHICH I PLEASE

How many cults have you been in? 
ONLY THE ONE

Paint dries on the pool’s walls. Elderly man swims laps and regards the minute hand on the large clock. How do you pass the time? 
DAYS AT A TIME

Now Sharon Tate sings melancholy verses in Hollywood Heights. Manson family blues. Dirty dirges. You’re on death’s row. How about for your last meal chap. May I interest you in the lamb roast? 
THE DEVIL MAY CARE 

Don’t take me back to the hollow fields of tobacco land. I’m begging for some solace and I don’t know where I’m going. Where are you from? 
I ’M A YANKEE THROUGH AND THROUGH

How many hearts have you mistreated? 
MORE THAN I’D CARE TO ADMIT

Lately I’m washing caramelized sugar with hot water down the drain. This is a safe space. No one here knows your name. Or will certainly see you again. Have you cheated?

What color are your eyes? 
You’re beginning to prefer your coffee black. You’re beginning to drink your wine dry and your whiskey straight. Not everything has to be neat. What is your sin? 
THAT I AM GUILTY AFTER ALL

Guilt cannot save you. Self depreciation does not evolve into not repentance. The hole will not bury you deep enough to hide from the ghosts. I promise they will follow you down. Where do you see yourself in ten years? 
IN YOUR SWEET EMBRACE

Do you remember me?  
ONLY VAGUELY

Snow days and bygone pleasures of innocence resonate in the images of your darkening memories. What are your new coordinates? 
THAT STARBUCKS IN SAN BERNADINO

What remains to be chopped off? 
SO FUCKING MUCH 

Your reflection still lives within the goat’s eye. Break-up packages reveal small stones to carelessly decorate the floor around your apartment. Put them in the toes of your stockings.

I still don’t understand how anyone understands their sense of self. I still just feel like old and borrowed pieces of you. 

And I love hand-me-downs like I love sharing of course. I love to feel close to people and I love to cling to what I know but I’ve never felt less like myself.

Everyone you love thinks of you regularly. There is no point in living except figuring out what everyone else has already gleaned. Everyone has already lived and you must too.

Your world here-- or at least your time in it-- is negligently complete.

Let us swear an oath to live recklessly and hollowly. Girdled with the gleaming world, captive in its glimmering splendor. Emancipated and relinquished from the thought that living it well ever mattered.  

At last, retrace your steps to that pond inside yourself in which the hundred or so unmoving fish bodies dwell in an un-rotting stasis. Slowly build the courage to look at your face within their reflection but do not dare break the reflected image on the surface. For if you dare...