Reacting to the Final Devastation:
A How To
by Julia West

Brown paper bags, wax-lined and crumpled into soggy brain-like nomads on the

            glittering street, playing tag

with unwanted flyers for gay clubs, forgotten ATM receipts and bar tabs, plastic grocery

            bags, unused condoms; with once warm

coffee cups, dead leaves, peppermint candy wrappers, cold french fries, one green and

            tattered sock, the pigeon shit and the dog shit and

no one ever wins. The game is never over. You tell yourself to keep moving

your feet, far, further, farthest and quickly, too. Try to be as far away as possible without

being on the way back again. The greater the distance the easier it all becomes.

 

It can be simple, just put the worn and clichéd label Reality on it if it helps you sleep

            better under wrinkled sheets. Convince yourself

that you can hold it in your cupped hands, that it isn't bigger than you. If you felt so

            inclined—so indulgent—you could even

write a poem about it all. Or you could pick up the pace and speed faster, faster down

            town. Prepare yourself

to run right off the fucking island when you reach its tip and embrace the frigid slap of

            the Hudson. Embrace the emotions that have no words

to be paired or nullified with. Tell Language to visit Reality in Hell and grunt as you start

            a steady jog away from the memory of your life at its peak.

And do not kid yourself, it was the peak and it has passed. Don’t bother trying to get your

            footing on this slippery slope downhill into mediocrity.

 

Do not notify loved ones, exes, lawyers, housecleaners, bosses, mail carriers, secretaries,

            former high school teachers,

or your local bartender. Do not notify the psychic—she already knows. Do not notify

            your large or small intestine, your palpitating heart,

your reason-hungry brain, the seemingly useless gadget between your legs, the mole on

            your hip, the blister on your toe,

or the thorn in your side. Please do not notify Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, Walt

            Disney, or Tony Snow. They are dead and they do not care.

Do not look backwards, only forwards; forwards into the unglinting future and focus

            every muscle, bone, ligament, and cartilage piece on forgetting.

Try not to remember what you are forgetting and just allow the waves of numbness to

            pass over and through you without noticing the debris caught in the updraft.

 

Ignore the faces you pass on your way to the furthest point from the things that haunt

            your sleep and shake you as you wake alone, unheld and unloved.

Allow a frost to form over your eyes as you look through each stranger the same way

            they look through you, have looked through you your entire life. Start running.

Run and gulp down the icy and granulated breath of the city. When you reach the piers

            just keep running and see how far you can jump. Then see how far

you can swim. How long will it take for the grey water to fill your lungs? How close will

            you be

to unconsciousness before you picture the face of the one you are leaving? That goddamn

            face that left you first and took with it

the only thing that ever mattered or gave you worth.

 

JULIA WEST has a Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Though she is continually drawn to writing poetry, she finds herself attempting cross-genre more and more. She recently began an internship at the Philadelphia City Paper where she hopes to further her knowledge of the fast-paced publishing world.

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