Emily Brown
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Image by Pascal Janssen

​How to Say You're Sorry

a) apologize for the feelings of another person, but deny, implicitly, your own culpability
 
b) apologize for the culture at large, which you are but a small part of, and which you are genuinely excited to see change
 
c) deny all wrongdoing on your part but apologize for the wrongdoing of others, who have really, you know, done something worthy of apology, which is much different from what you did, since what happened with you happened in such a specific and unique context and which, therefore, cannot be apologized for, since you have done nothing wrong, but can be explained, because it did happen, but not how it was told by this other, not lying, but you know, misinterpreting person who you are not saying is out to get you but who is, let’s say, misguided
 
d) clarify that the real problem here is not the wrongdoing, which we all know is wrong, but the culture that is coming up around this wrongdoing, wherein any innocent person, like me for example, is now the true victim. i mean really we’re scared out here, you never know when they’ll come for you, accuse you. i mean, can we not even be in a room alone? the witchhunt, they’re really out to get us and they don’t care about collateral damage, at all. it’s really scary. someone needs to do something.

They Say Pride Goeth Before the Fall

which is why they always hold these parades in the summertime
my bus got full halfway to the city and none of the teenage glitter girls
knew what the fare was or how to pay it. it’s cute.
 
i would say the bus was 85% rainbow 10% comic-con 5% just trying to get to work
each of us in our circular containment
 
i really fucking love being alive

No Future for My Current Feelings

                                    could
(thrilled!) disavow everything i’d ever said
the whole lump of it    o how
desperate to be aloof in one’s
mouth debased by sour ardor &
shudder            i said that          what bullshit
 
welp, that’s fucked, i said and
went to a panel on the
capitalocene. i debated giving up all
my bad habits. i went to
see my friends until one gave
me ice cream and said don’t

The Marshmallow Test

pretty into always being slightly dissatisfied
i'm always the child who eats
the one marshmallow because waiting’s hard
because i grew up poor.   because i’ve
never seen such a beautiful marshmallow
before    + i don’t trust my luck

Validate Me

we stop on the walk
to watch the little league game
the dads coaching from
every position

being with family is a wonderful burden
it is hard to muster
energy is expelled and again manifests
when i try to explain my desires they disappear

i couldn’t stand to be in my own mind
it was unreal, the landscape was so flush

i wanted to shut all the
little doors inside myself


what feels stupider than pining?
what’s worse than being in love?

an overwhelming sensation of oh yeah i am a person
this is probably my one life
 
*


tired in mind and body and
i'm only an exit away
songs of desire bleating out yes yes hey
 
i wanted to be good so bad i went around asking people
well you’re not not good they said okay i said


i searched for your image in other people
i thought about you wearing my clothes
until they were yours

in the corner of a video i kept rewinding
until i was sure you were right there

i am inventing a person in my phone
this person is you
 
*
 
in any relationship
there’s only the one
archivist
 
are you the fact checker
or the fact

what i am trying to say is
my heart leapt

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EMILY BROWN's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Bennington Review, Prelude, Sonora Review, and Lambda Literary’s Poetry Spotlight. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  See what she’s reading on Instagram @bedgloom