Christopher Phelps

WHY I DON’T ALWAYS MENTION IT

I don’t want to have to perform my illness, to prove my skill
in being what someone expects and what they don’t expect
in the right, pleasant places; in a pleasing ratio.
I don’t want to always be taking a test, being assessed or assayed.
This is a version of the first reason, emphasizing the micro-fall-from-grace
that can pop out of any moment, from inside a projected expectation.
It’s a kind of arrogance, or can be, to believe the diagnosis and read it
back to yourself and others. It’s also a delicate thing, asking the hermit crab
whether its shell is its home or part of itself. Admittedly the answer
is often “yes” in the form of a question.
I’m not especially special. I’m not an antique painting of myself,
painted in the past, before I was born, making me impossible.
I’m whatever happened and I happen to be. I’m a haunted body that is
a city of quick cells, selves each in their release, as is everyone.
It’s not an illness or a disorder, for the most part. Why should any of us
define ourselves against the best parts, which are more or less loose
from the categories we invent and discover, in a ratio always
evolving: means rolling away from what it was. Rolling away
like a Doppler echolalia that finds a sound and then,
on better days, a melody sung / snug in the garage.

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