less galactic horoscopes by Giorgia Sage

less galactic horoscopes giorgia sage

I remember the first night I slept in the open So few nights under stars in all these years, a measure of longing in light years. I remember when crying was just crying and you did it when you did it.

eli coppola

chaldean slang

introduction to the reincarnation of thrasyllus 6 typography less galactic horoscopes nausea evolution of a faux pas vivisection somthing about birthdays

9 10 11 12 16 17

interview with the reincarnation of thrasyllus 19

introduction to the reincarnation of thrasyllus When I met Giorgia during orientation I think the first thing I ever said to her was “I like your overalls!” with an alarming level of excitement. Luckily, that was not quite enough to scare her away. It was not long after that I made her acquaintance in a more traditional manner, and it was not long after that when I discovered that she was a poet. Over the past several months, I have heard poetry of hers that is just as jarring as it is beautiful. I have become familiar with Giorgia’s poetry by diffusion, and by that I mean it happened naturally. Whether it was from open mics, Slam Poetry events, her homemade zines, or chilly Tuesday mornings in the lounge spent sipping coffee while she wrote. The natural way in which I came to know Giorgia’s poetry seems appropriate given its content: a series of brutally honest poems with an eloquent bluntness, each one is understood a little more, thematically, by the one before it. When read together, they paint a picture, while still remaining strong independently of one another. They capture a lifestyle wrapped in kelp with honesty woven seamlessly into pretty words and wordplays. These are the kind of poems that make you want to sit down and listen even if your leg is falling asleep and you really, really have to pee. You will listen. They insist that you listen. If there were a form of southern gothic that was based in Connecticut and aquatic in aesthetic, these poems would be part of that genre. They are the kind of poems one reads in an entirely quiet room, or has read to them. The aural pleasures of these poems lie not only in Giorgia’s word choice, but in the visceral reaction one has as a reader. It is a treat.

typography you and i used to drive around spitting cherry seeds out the windows and naming the fonts on storefront signs. i knew my serif from my sans serif before i knew that blood was supposed to be thicker than water “move that letting over three picas.” “okay…good call.” we would watch trailers on your laptop when we didn’t have enough money to go to the movies, and name the fonts in those too a cone of purple ice cream melting over my hands— licking it off my fingers. sometimes in silence i hear coney island carnival tunes as if the murky water of the love canal runs in my veins too. “your grandfather used to own the cyclone,” you tell me. that’s cool but he’s not my grandfather he’s just your father. when you were a little girl you ran down to atlantic beach the morning after a storm to see all the new shells and knots of kelp the waves threw up last night. on the graveled shore you found the sodden carcass of a seagull, its chest ripped open, heart hanging out on a few red threads. when you were fourteen a doctor with big hands pulled a still red lump from your body, hanging on by a few red threads. sometimes in silence i wonder if i am its ghost. in the silence after you tell me to go fuck myself i can still taste your fear from all those years ago. tell me though, did you ever visit your father in prison?

once at a violin recital i got lost in my teacher’s house i found his african grey in a cage outside next to the grill tried to say a word but just made a sound. my fingers were too bitten bloody to play the notes so i sat out there with that bird instead and told it about how sometimes i thought i was your favorite sideshow.

less galactic horoscopes weekly forecast sometime in autumn: monday: thick rope of kelp in the pacific tuesday: stone in death valley wednesday: fist thursday: caseless pillow friday: 10mg escitalopram saturday: moth caught under glass sunday: book dropped in bathtub my body moves in sync with distant forms these less galactic horoscopes fold my joints like origami unfold them like bad decisions each day i have to fight the urge not to wage war against every cell in my body keep an armory back home in my desk drawer lucky me didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bring it here not everyone can put 3000 miles and hundreds of corn fields between themselves and their shadow but in the glow of nighttime halogen my body becomes a predator iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never been fast enough to run from

nausea i started vomiting and couldn’t stop a murder of slurs in some bird speak mulch-winged and deep water-eyed into that sleek porcelain mouth of a toilet nabbing this worm of a tongue from my mouth 3am not quite early enough for this bird dry heaving like trying to sink a ship and outside the aquatic thrum of wrecking leaves all over my body my skin case my society mechanism some kind of imbalanced checkbook for all my shortcomings i am 5.8% below average and my x chromosomes are too tired to wear heels today or ever time is a better pumice than stone could ever be for these rough words what i mean is i am bad at being important to peoplei’ll just tell you i hate you in three different languages when i bury the brandy part of blackberry brandy with ice cubes and coca cola like parts of history we want to forget picked up a habit of sneezing just to hear people say bless you because these days i’m ravenous for some tenderness that tastes more like root beer chapstick than everyone trying to rearrange the letters of sex to spell love your hands aren’t big enough to cup both these coasts neither is your heart so stop complaining and just fedex it to me. express mail. too cheap for bubblewrap. and uninsured. only one aorta and a cockle will make it here from olympia you’ll bury the rest in the viscous sand of the puget sound or steam with butter and parsley for someone else with a less sensitive stomach to devour

anatomy of a faux pas:

1. faux pas i am only slightly ashamed to admit i have thought about you naked during shabbat thought about kissing you and touching you and it is always less awesome when it actually happens. i’m sorry. im trying. no really its not you its just nothing felt more electric than just lying next to her she asked if we could have a staring contest but we couldn’t stop smiling tried each others skin on until 5am she shoplifted me with the tags still on wore me to all her favorite parties danced with all her favorite girls she forgot me on the couch when she left with someone else

basically i’m sorry she asks “what for” and i’m not sure but i promise to find something to be sorry about there are two plastic chairs on the balcony it’s pretty cold out but i was hoping we could sit on them for awhile

3. faux pas i am only slightly ashamed to admit i have thought about you naked during shabbat— thought about kissing you and touching you and someone’s mom told me i speak beautiful hebrew but i don’t speak hebrew. i just said “thank you” because i was busy thinking about the shape of your tongue in my mouth and how it always triggers my gag reflex. i’m sorry. im trying. no really its not you its just nothing felt more electric than just lying next to her 40mg of adderall, splayed hair splayed legs, a few glasses of bad white wine your dorm was built to be riot proof: i left my fighting spirit with my better judgment at the door you asked if we could have a staring contest but we couldn’t stop smiling tried each others skin on until 5am. you shoplifted me with the tags still on, wore me to all your favorite parties, danced with all your favorite girls, forgot me on the couch when you left with someone else. basically i’m sorry you asks “what for” and i’m not sure but i promise to find something to be sorry about like i ripped your seams, like i lost the receipt but am still asking for a refund, like i threw my mind away and didn’t even have the decency to compost it or at least offer to feed it to your hamster. i know you’re busy with your new old girlfriend but a gentle snow is falling it sounds like your voice when you’re crying at 5am there are two plastic chairs on my balcony it’s pretty cold out but i was hoping you’d come over and we could sit on them for awhile

vivisection on days like today the air is fiberglass breathe too hard it might break tastes like gin and tonic on the rocks the clouds have frostbite and my tongue is made of minerals, my hair alfalfa, my organs are animals brawling in my skin on days like today eyebrows overgrown gardens pluck ripe thoughts from them like tomatoes. everyone walks around with surprised looks dressed up on their faces, going nowhere on days like today gonna smash the air like cheap christmas ornaments and burn off my eyebrows finger fuck the clouds til my hands turn blue and fall off. on days like today iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll let the animals out of their cages.

something about birthdays trying to shift into a poetic mode / like describe this in a way other than what it is but still in a way that / manages to get at the real meat of a matter reduce it to fundamental / up down top bottom / strange charm people here have a strange charm magnetic and revolting / dead kelp smell bury me in it make me into mulch for brighter blooms to blossom from / i turned 18 today and iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got weeds sprouting from every joint / none with any notable medicinal qualities on the other hand the state now recognizes me as a person / most notably i can now legally consent to when you unhook my bra on thursday afternoons or make my own appointments to go sit in sterile rooms full of beeping / to be told that nothing is wrong with me / when i know something really is / like stop picking all my flowers and not remembering to change the water

interview with the reincarnation of thrasyllus 1) What inspires you? Specific people? Things? etc? I wrote an essay about this once, for college applications and for myself, and I always kind of wish I could copy and paste it when I get questions like this, but that’s pretty tacky, isn’t it? Or it would be. Either way, what I always try to convey in terms of inspiration is my interest in and love for the subtleties of human interactions with one another and with the world around them. I am particularly interested in the complications regarding intimacy between individuals and with the self, as well as the intersection between harm and kindness. I don’t know I feel like I’m just prattling on. Referring back to that essay as a crutch, I said in it that I try to write about/talk about/etc. the “space between the big-small,” which is pretty cerebral and abstract but I hope it kind of makes sense, at least a little bit. I feel like I’m in a very confused place mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and developmentally right now— at least significantly more so than I have been before, which is to be expected, of course, so I’ve been trying to do that in my writing a lot. Create a sense of confusion but also a kind of experience of exhilaration and wonder as a result of and in spite of that confusion. I’ve been thinking a lot about destruction too, and destructive impulses and how different people choose to deal with those things. Since I’m a pretty young and selfish person and writer though, I think I usually just end up writing about how I deal with those things. Through that I think I’m learning about others and what they do too. One day I hope to be a “big” enough writer that I can really separate myself from my poetry. Not all the time, but sometimes. At least in a way that I can get more into other people’s heads. Give myself a break from my own. A lot of people use writing to get out of their heads. I fail at that. I’d like to fail better at it. In terms of specific things and people, I’ll say the usual, like poetry and music and the like. People I love. You know. Specifically Anne Carson and Eli Coppola as poets, as well as a lot of my peers and contemporaries. Those guys are stars. I usually point people back to the song, “The Good That Won’t Come Out” by Rilo Kiley. It’s a good demonstration of a lot of what I’ve been blathering about.

2) How do you use the thing/person that inspires you, every time you write? In your thought process? If not, what else drives you? I don’t know. I just kind of go. Sometimes my tank is a bit empty and I putter out. Those usually don’t turn into poems. But if my tank is full, or I’m pissed off enough, it’s hard to get me to stop. I always end up with more than I need or want and prune it down. Because I’m so interested in the way people relate to each other and to their surroundings, I usually write in second person. Usually, I have a pretty clear idea of the “you” in the poem too. I’d been writing to the same “you” for the last year and a half and only recently started writing about some other “you’s” which has been a pretty disorienting experience for me, honestly. Yes, I mean a real person. I’m not going to bullshit anyone and try to say my writing isn’t overtly autobiographical. I know the whole “all writing is autobiographical” spiel— which I think is true for the most part. But it’s more autobiographical for some people than others. My work is hyper-autobiographical usually. I’ve been made to feel like that means I’m immature in the past. I am immature but I don’t think the autobiography in my writing is what makes me immature. What makes me immature is that I’m still pretty much a child. So I guess what drives me is an overabundance of emotion, and a desire to form connections with people, either directly or indirectly. Usually if there’s something I’m trying to say to someone, or I can’t say to someone, I’ll write a poem about it. Or if I have a weird weekend. Which is most weekends. That’s been helpful this semester, always fills up my tank, to keep with the metaphor. 3) At what moment did you realize writing could be used as powerful/effective tool in articulating yourself? This is always such a rough question to answer. I honestly don’t remember. I’ve been writing since I could actually write, not to sound like a dick. I always feel like a dick when I say that. But really, I learned to write my alphabet in kindergarten and started writing short stories in first grade. I wrote my first poem in the summer between first grade and second grade and it’s been downhill from there. Kidding, not downhill, just kind of plodding on. Naturally, it’s become more important to me, as my emotional vocabulary and experiences have broadened.

I take writing for granted a lot, or at least how cathartic it is for me and how grateful I am to have it as an outlet. I’ve become a lot more aware of how important it is to me, and how useful and beneficial it is, because of some important relationships with people I’ve had in the last few years, where these people didn’t have writing as a means of expression and it was a lot harder for them to communicate with me directly and indirectly. That’s still going on. With some of the same and different people. Lots of the “you’s” in my poems. I think what is always the most astonishing thing for me is when I’m creating images or metaphors in an effort to explain this one experience, sensation, or emotion, and I will look at this list of entirely disparate concept and images that all describe this same thing but in different ways? And that’s when I’m like “oh, wow, poetry is this thing that exists in the world and even though it utilizes language it’s very outside of language at the same time.” 4) How did something you like/love turned into something you disliked/hated? I’m not completely sure if I understand this question, honestly. I don’t know what the something is, but usually betrayal is involved. Either something or someone (usually someone) betrays me, or I betray myself in such a way that I no longer like the subject or object involved? 5) How do you see yourself in the words that you write? As an adult? Toddler? Teen? What is the picture you draw? I know that people have told me I write older than I am, but I don’t really feel older than I am. I don’t know how old I feel. I’m definitely still kid-level dumb though. I think I’ll throw this back into TSE’s court when he asked us how many poems old we are. That’s a good way to talk about age in relation to writing. I’d say I’m a lot more poems old than I am years, but still not sure how many. I think stylistically I seem older but content-wise I still feel like a teenager. The picture I try to draw is pretty much just what I talk about in terms of inspiration. I try to just internalize things and then externalize the same things but filtered by my own ideas and experiences and perspectives. Like I said, since I feel very confused but also exhilarated right now, I try to convey that in my poems. The narrator in my poems is a pretty hyper-neurotic version of myself, I think. My poems take the autobiographical and just exaggerate the neuroses or 21

infuse it with extra neuroses. I’m a very neurotic person but I come off as pretty well put-together, so my poetry is where I kind of get to let loose in my poems as far as neuroses go. I try to be so highstrung in my writing that it makes people uncomfortable. I like it when people really resonate with my work but just feel disconcerted by the end of it. 6) For whom are you writing? Or trying to please/give attention to— if anyone/ anything? I try to always write for myself. Whenever I’m writing for another person or purpose or a specific audience, I fuck myself over. I either can’t write or I produce shitty, ingenuous work. Not to say I never write for an audience or theme or purpose— I do. That’s a natural part of trying to be involved in the professional writing world to some capacity. But if I have ulterior motives when I’m writing, that’s when shit hits the fan. I’m not able to just be with the poem or feel the poetic energy or get in touch with the images and experiences necessary to make a poem in that situation. It turns into an assignment, which is a disservice to both the poem and to myself. Regardless, I’m not going to say I don’t write for an audience or that I want to please my readers. I do. I like reading and performing my work. I like when people react well to it and are enthusiastic. That’s just not my primary reason for writing or sharing. I have no option but to write, and it’s just a nice validating bonus when I can put it out there and get feedback or at least reactions. I think that poetry is an inherently communal action and experience and that it’s honestly not completing its birth into being if it’s never shared with anyone. Even retroactively. Like Emily Dickinson’s work is fantastic and amazing and she’s one of my favorite poets but I honestly don’t think her work was complete as a poetic body until it left her little dusty house and was given to the wide world. It was waiting there, you know. Part of me is a little sad it only finished its birth after she had passed, but poems do what they do. My poems do what they do, so do yours. Even things you’re doing that you don’t think are poems are poems and they’re doing what they do while they interact with people. Long walks and singing along to songs can be poems too, you feel? And pieces of verse might be total posers and not even be poems. It’s a tough question, “what is a poem?” Poems are sneaky like that. You never know where they’re hiding. 22

Giorgia Sage is an undergraduate at Wesleyan University studying studio art and environmental science. A San Francisco native, the most homesick she gets is that she forgets she now lives in a place that is not in a drought. She has been published in Barking Sycamores, Sugar Mule, The Found Poetry Review, the MOTIF anthology series, and Your Impossible Voice, among other journals. She has been told her work is like drinking a coke with Frank Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hara. She likes walking and often wishes she was a bat.