When I was thirteen, I had a friend named Carly
who was obsessed with pills—she took supplements, like echinacea,
obsessively, counting them out, holding them in her hand.
She liked the way the light cascaded off their slippery backs,
something like that. Carly was a beauty and smart, but one of those
who vanishes after high school, like wind over a rocky ledge.
When my niece first went into the hospital at 12, it was ideation,
a word strange to the ear. It sounds too much like possession,
or cultish reprogramming, or something you do to crops.
She sounded like herself on the phone—even sounded strong.
We had a witty chat about the merits of the gayer therapist.
But then, came the pills: 28 of them. Attempt is no better.
Worse, if I’m honest. It strangely underscores the outcome
as failure. She lives and has to go on attempting to live. Why do it,
live? The wind whistles its terror outside the window at night.
Who can’t relate to that? I answer her with this: the blooms
come back again, I’ve never seen them not do it, and they pulse
with future-hunger, same as us. Whole fences, whole hillsides,
lit with that desire to extend, that single intention. My advice
is to find an idea that distracts you beyond comprehension, one
that has no apparent outcome, and attempt it, over and over
again, like breath, like hunger. You know you can do it. Listen
to every iteration for a better answer than the last. You can make
a life of this, hold it in your hand. See how it wants to be remade again?
"The Bloom's Beauty Is Insistence" is published here with kind permission of the author.
The ALL Review is pleased to present our How to Live series, poems chosen to help readers navigate these difficult and rapidly changing times.
