Love Will Get You More Than Gold
Mathematics fails me
just as I learned to adore it
on the hill alone
above the taped off instruments
the voice of a harried teacher
echoing inside the tulip walls
caught overlapping in yellow embrace
about what she is expected to do
and how she cannot do it
I turn to look at her bouncing voice
and want to ask her many questions
I say hello to a man taking out his garbage
as I walk past the tic tac toe
under another desperate rainbow
still calculating agony
in this longest April
how can the small drama of my realising
the shift from running from to running to
still cause stickiness
odd stains in stomach linings
as well as this wild joy
of finally knowing more than only what I do not want
how can I also be encased
unhinged by the open window
blasted again by the sweetest greens declaring
me a fool for conflating freedom and happiness
and a sage for making the right decision
which is a constant one unmaking itself
like the very high numbers we are encountering
or like how solace isn’t a singular feeling
and guilt isn’t and love isn’t and friendship isn’t either
and writing isn’t exactly luxurious
unless compulsion is too or sanity is or pleasure is
a guy at the auto shop saying hi through the blue railing
of my childhood bedroom
I want to stop to suck his cock for hours
under the neon stars
on my knees
darling I keep walking
smelling only myself for now
or the family meals next door
I say hello to a neighbour’s dog
this gorgeous medium sized black and white one
they have one of those wooden spice racks
on their kitchen wall
that for some reason brings me joy
when I was very small
I took comfort in occasionally seeing into
other people’s homes through the windows
sure I’m nosy
but I was just checking I was alive
I’m going to write to my clients
to ask them to give me at least 4 weeks’ notice
if they don’t want my services anymore
and also to say that algebraic fractions
aren’t as terrifying as they sound
and here we are being terrified of everything else
and for it
as I play Minnie Riperton to the dill
avoiding a call from my mother
because I cannot bear to hear her cry anymore
and I am leaning into my new ‘attachment style’
called: leave me the hell alone
for at least 40 days of black
for an uncle who caught us at the arcade
we’d been forbidden from being only 8
with our mouths stuffed with ice cubes
giggling nectarine slices lined up for sacrifice
a dream to the family business
a lover from the other religion abandoned
a love from the same sex refused
by the fantastic lamb platter
the whiskey fingers the tribe the plastic name
oh reputation I couldn’t give a fuck
in my heartless heart of hearts
I never found no one
so I could see everyone
I could draw my own face out of nothing
I could turn my own back out of love
I could get stuck with the 16 households in my building
and my 300 houseplants
and my impeccable prepping
I want to lay you down
I want to stroke your forehead
come here I want to see how you are ageing
come here I want to watch your hair grow
come here did I say I was sorry
come here I learned the word ‘and’ –
Note: The title of this poem is a lyric from Minnie Riperton’s ‘When It Comes Down To It’ from her 1975 album Adventures in Paradise.
Mira Mattar writes fiction and poetry. She is an independent researcher, editor, and tutor. A Palestinian/Jordanian from London, she continues to live and work there. Her first book, Yes, I Am A Destroyer was recently published by Ma Bibliothèque. Her first chapbook, Affiliation, is out now from Sad Press; and her first collection of poems will be published by The 87 Press.
