Atrophy
()
About this ebook
In his moving debut collection, Jackson Burgess examines heartbreak, depression, and empathy through a lens of rigorous introspection.
Atrophy’s poems vary in location, mostly between Los Angeles and Iowa City, with reoccurring characters serving as touchstones, forming the book’s narrative. Much of the collection is about or directly addresses an ex-lover, Lily. In the wake of that failed relationship, Atrophy wrestles with loneliness, substance abuse, and dissociation, utilizing lists, letters, prose poems, and free verse.
These poems celebrate the past while mourning it, armed with the advantage of retrospect. Prescription drugs, dog fights, dance parties, love letters, and ghosts—the world depicted is at times dark, at times humorous, but always human. Atrophy is vulnerable and cinematic, a series of manic meditations exploring what it means to love and be loved, to hurt and be hurt.
Jackson Burgess
Jackson Burgess is the author of Atrophy (Write Bloody Publishing, 2018) and the chapbook Pocket Full of Glass, winner of the 2014 Clockwise Competition (Tebot Bach, 2017). He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his poetry and fiction have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Cincinnati Review, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He has led workshops at the University of Iowa, Los Angeles Southwest College, and the St. Vincent de Paul Cardinal Manning Center on Skid Row. Jackson lives in Los Angeles, where he works as an editor and educator.
Related to Atrophy
Related ebooks
I Love You Is Back Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Strange Light Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5City of Insomnia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverything is Everything Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rise of the Trust Fall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Popular Longing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bang Ditto Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Scandalabra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDrive Here and Devastate Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The New Clean Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSunset at the Temple of Olives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Poison Horse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMultiVerse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpiking the Sucker Punch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Cruelty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Kisses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon't Go Back to Sleep Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crushing It Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvery Little Vanishing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBITER Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Constant Velocity of Trains Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough a Small Ghost: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems from My Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingssensorium: poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My, My, My, My, My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fresh Cheese Sampler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn These Days of Prohibition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Feather Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ceremony for the Choking Ghost: Poems by Karen Finneyfrock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way We Move Through Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Psychology For You
The Art of Letting Go: Stop Overthinking, Stop Negative Spirals, and Find Emotional Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Self-Care for People with ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Laziness Does Not Exist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: The Narcissism Series, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer's World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Atrophy
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Atrophy - Jackson Burgess
Author
I.
VAN GOGH
after Richard Siken
I take off my fingertips, send them in packing peanuts,
and though you don’t want them, you toss them in the freezer
just in case I want them back. I pull out my widow’s peak,
inches of hair by now you’ve never seen, slap on a stamp,
send it along. In the story I don’t tell anyone,
my heart is a town—cottages, cobblestone, courtyard and all.
You’re the butcher, carving lamb chops. Of course
I’m the town drunk. 5am again and the lamps
are sputtering to make way for day. Okay, I’m sorry
I called you the butcher. What I’m getting at
is have you ever seen a gas station
that’s gone under, the nozzles draped in yellow tape,
the green plastic screens dustswept? It’s no fun,
like me landing in your hometown and calculating the odds
of brushing shoulders in the terminal with someone
whose shoulder you once brushed. So I take off my shoulder
and Saran Wrap it up, tape a tight package to protect
the dust you may recognize when you slice in
with your cleaver, clear some space on the block.
I’d rather not mention the nights I spent wailing barside
with friends who were not really friends. The taps
dripped what looked like sympathy and I’m ashamed to say
I took them at their word. It’s been a long year
of blood moons and mixology. Towels in the bass drum,
handkerchiefed high hats. I’ve lost track
of how far I’ve driven straight—if the world is round, I may
have ripped right through. You can’t write through an absence,
you only end up giving form to silhouette. But what’s wrong
with being the butcher, anyway? Every town needs one.
Say there’s been a deluge of roadkill and the meat
is going to fester and boil. I had the idea
that any good story needs an ending worthy of the sum
of its miseries, but I can’t plot my way out of this one,
Lily, I can’t even put on my fucking shirt. I’m sorry
I dragged you back into all this. I’m sorry I made you watch.
If it makes you feel better, I’ll be the butcher—
seems fitting, all this smoky blood, these ligaments
forming lines. I found Jakov against our palm tree in the front
with a knife, and I took the knife away, so then it was mine.
Couldn’t find the words to explain that he had it wrong,
you don’t need a blade to take off your hands,
you just need a pen and a heart full of townsfolk,
starving, neglecting their herds because they can’t
get out of bed, watching the last heifer rot in the sun,
because the butcher’s gone missing, he’s lost
in the terminal, making eyes at friends
who are not friends, a whole lot of harmonicas,
and the thing about the gas station
is the pumps are still on, sour green blinks
wandering the night, but nobody has the guts
to cross the yellow line. I had the idea
I could drink my way back into our bedroom,
that same sagging mattress, our clothes scattered like snow,
like fingertips in a freezer left open
in case the butcher comes back.
II.
ELEGY
We were the ones slow-dancing with streetlamps, fashioning gallows out of bottle and bone, we were singing from the tops of pines, the birds didn’t know what to make of us and our scramble toward the sky, we were building walls in the backyard and knocking them down the next morning, on the metro we were always swimming in pools of our own sweat, on midnight treks for smokes we caught rain on our tongues and carried it back home, we were cages of light barreling into the gutter, the only place we fit, our mating calls resembled quarters in a blender, our path was marked by the string of baffled dog catchers and gas station receipts, the candy in the freezer was not candy, the