Twenty Two

By Elynn Alexander

You are out there
But I refuse to have my face
About me. I have left my eyes on ice.
Back. At that palace.

They have a name for you there.
And a room. Number twenty two.
This is information
I will not use.

But I say it matters
That they see you. 
So I push to make this so. 

So when they ask. (As they will ask)
I can describe you

And I do: Standing there,
Holding up this bound. Bold biography.
Flapping pages in the air
I make birds of you.
I wave a thin, painted face, paper. A page.
I clutch a pile of your hair.
I present in three directions:
I say, “Look. Evidence. Behold.”

Then I shake you until you scatter
I draw you.
And I erase you.
Getting all of them right
Until none of them are you.

But I say, “Look at what I hold here.”
From this idea. From how now,
I choose
To say I’ve made you up
When they’ve all, one by one, become convinced 
of you.

They say that you are in there, 
Room twenty two
But this is information
They will never use

Elynn Alexander co-hosts Tuesday Muse, a monthly performance series and open mic, with Cleveland Wall at the Ice House in Bethlehem. She is the author of “The Shouldspeak Disease” from Naked Bulb Press, poetry that explores the language of shaming. She is the founder of the collective resource Lehigh Valley Poetry, at www.lehighvalleypoetry.org.