This is a collection of poems that concern themselves with addiction, love, loss, and raccoons.Bachelor of Art

Gavazov, Lily

Carolina Digital Repository

              Flood  By Lily Gavazov          Senior Honors Thesis Creative Writing Program Department of English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill   2 April 2020   Approved:  ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––  Alan Shapiro, Thesis Advisor (Name), Reader (Name), Reader   2           Physics Poem           3 Newcomer       4 Hindsight        5 My First Drink       6 Manic Pixie Dream Girl       7 To Mistresses        8 Newcomer II        9 Dead Girls        10 Clubhouse        11 Anonymous        12 The Racoons        13 Sarah         14 Ricochet       15 Cherry Pit        16 Cough        17 Piedmont 79        18 Wilderness        19 I should give myself goosebumps more often   20 Portrait of the Alcoholic with Relapse Fantasy   21 Flood         22                   3 Physics Poem  I think of my drinking like the first law of motion: def. an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. A ball rolling someone traps with their foot. Theoretically, if I’m remembering correctly, on a flat surface, without friction, the ball rolls on forever. I don’t say this often, but I used to want to be a doctor. I told one, in the hospital, with a banana bag in my arm. Anything peach still makes me gag. Sipping cheap flavored rum from the bottle, while the parents were upstairs. The more I drank, the better I felt—Didn’t remember ‘til recently, but sometime soon after that, I heard someone say, in a log cabin, drinking coffee, that once they started, there was no telling what would happen. I shrugged it off as coincidence and carried on like nothing had happened. This new information was useless, I’d never need it  again. When the science got too hard: def. I was too wasted to learn it, I took film classes instead. They turned the lights off and showed movies. If I could remove the barriers myself, then, like the ball, I could continue ad infinitum.                  4 Newcomer  The upside-down cross tattooed on her thigh, tells me the God thing might be an issue. I cross the room, introduce myself. Her voice is high & childlike. It spins & fills the space like a vat of cotton candy, the color of a freshly healed scar. Her insides don’t match  her outsides. She stands in a white line of porchlight. The cigarette at her side glides toward her lips, releases smoke to her throat & sheds the ash from its tip. As it falls beside her leg, I see that, to her, the cross is right side up.                                  5 Hindsight  I was taller than the boys in my fifth-grade class and sprouted curves before other girls, who poked fun at my training bras. While everyone else grew up and filled out, I stayed about the same. Once scrutinized for my above-average size, I was picked on for being small.  I think I peaked at sixteen when I wore more makeup and weighed ten pounds less. That’s when a boy eight years older told me to hold on and put his cock down my throat. And a teacher tried to fuck on the classroom floor. They risked everything for me. No one ever wants it  that bad anymore. I drank like there was no tomorrow, because I hoped it wouldn’t come. Throughout my young adult life, this was the only way I had fun. Playing board games on the basement floor, drinking seltzer from a can, I feel like I’m back in my training bras, growing up too quickly for me to understand.                     6 My First Drink  It seemed like everyone else had been drunk before. Many had older brothers & sisters, or parents, who would buy them booze. They posed in photos with beer cans, red cups & tally marks branded on the back of their hands with black permanent marker. In geometry class, they traded names & addresses like party intelligence. I was always the first one done with my quiz. My time finally came on New Year’s Eve when I was fifteen & my best friend’s dad was out of town. I knew mom wouldn’t approve; she hadn’t had a drink in years. The advice she gave me was don’t do shots. The boys brought half a bottle of clear liquor & my first thought was whether or not it would be enough for six of us. I poured two & took them like capfuls of medicine. We splayed a deck of cards in a circle on the floor & someone gave me a mixed drink. Two is you. I held it & I remember feeling warm. Three is me. Not flushed but that the room & the people in it were familiar & comforting. Seven is heaven. I never wanted it to end. Apparently, while my head was in the toilet I kept asking why me? Maybe because I was the only one of us that night. I knew, I think, deep down, or a part of me did.                 7 Manic Pixie Dream Girl  People have a bad habit of falling in love with me at bus stops, in taxi cabs, on motorcycles, in secret labs. It saved a lot of money when I was drinking and drugging. I’d quit months ago, but when I happened upon a half-empty pack of cigarettes, I smoked the rest because I hadn’t bought them recently. I let a sad boy bum some after my home group. He had a few years, I hadn’t hit one. We got coffee and he tried to kiss me. I said I wasn’t ready, and he got angry. So, I watched as he walked out of meetings. Once my ex overdosed, I knew I couldn’t save anyone, regardless of how much glitter, indie music, or Naloxone I threw at them.                           8 To Mistresses  My mother wants me to know, at an early age, that a man will never leave his wife for me, no matter what  he says. I’m unsure whether or not my mustachioed DJ in Bushwick is still with his green card wife.  My father reads a poem of mine & says this isn’t poetry; it doesn’t rhyme. I never tell him about my condition.  When a woman warns me of a man whose poems are riddled with maudlin guilt, it only piques my interest, like the dope  I’d try if I went back out. If he were so pernicious, you wouldn’t have suggested I contact someone his age. We meet for coffee  & fellowship, where everyone judges my youthful exuberance & exposed décolletage. He says mouth  like moth. You don’t come up. He can’t stop drinking me in from across the room, while toying with another young thing.  I look back as I leave, to make sure he’s watching, though I know he will be. I ask how you two know each other. You say  we had a long affair. I ask about his penis. You say you can’t remember. I search the back of his book for your name. It’s beneath family & friends.           9 Newcomer II  The book of poetry she gave me is buried on one of my shelves in a brown paper bag. A sad reminder of the long-legged girl who lent it to me at the Sunday afternoon women’s group, before she went out of town. My texts have gone unreturned. I know she’s squinting to stabilize her own misspelled messages, but I’m supposed to give it back. As I peruse the newspaper obits, I wonder whether the book would be better tossed or undisturbed.                                   10 Dead Girls  I was ready for one of us to die because that would have made sense—  the drowning drunk or junkie grasping at a flimsy reed of rosary beads.  I wasn’t prepared for it to be anyone else. I didn’t know her, but I knew of her. I always  knew who the pretty ones were. Time moved slowly after they announced it. At a friend’s house for lunch,  we couldn’t eat, just sat quietly, for what felt like weeks, and I wished it had been me. I still feel guilty  for skipping the funeral. I prayed for her family, even if I didn’t believe it, and less so now.  I know I’m not supposed to understand why I’m here when my faith was in substance  that tinted my lips blue; why girls die with tiny gold crosses hanging around their necks.                        11 Clubhouse   white orb light fixtures  drip from the wood-  paneled ceiling  like spilt beer  onto eggshell  painted cinderblocks  an oracle before  the window reflected  in a bulb  hanging  behind  their face an icon  of Byzantine mosaic  sprouting violets  from the ears  of another fellow                 12 Anonymous  Windshield wipers scrape, too wary for the weather, against the glass like screeching chalk. Water droplets waltz in the traffic light’s halo. My sponsor takes a hand off the wheel and passes her phone to me. The spider webbed screen reflects a photo of the man who sat in front of me last Thursday. When I pretended to scratch the inner corners of my eyes, and cried like a child at drop-off while she snuck me another white chip. The unfortunate reality is he’d whispered they would watch the sun set someday soon, but his grand- parents found him in the bath: no longer breathing, slightly bleeding, beside a needle. She reminds me it’s like a snake’s shed skin: A delicate, harrowing cast. We arrive at the church and share a cigarette inside her car, smoke funneling into our lungs.                       13 The Raccoons  I went to toss the rest of my cigarette in the garbage. When I lifted the lid two raccoons stared up at me from inside the green bin— arms wrapped around one another, as if caught in the middle of some salacious act. They stood motionless in their bower. I sent a photo and you said be careful— like many times before —you don’t want to get rabies. They scratched the slick plastic to ascend, arms clung to the other as they slid back, weighed down, until one surmounted the valley of trash, balancing on top, masked head held high, before scurrying away, leaving the other behind— like you, moving across the state. I hesitated toward the junk and tipped it over enough for it to poke a whiskered snout in my direction, let out another ungrateful hiss and disappear in a cotton ball absorbing grey matter.                14 Sarah  i won’t think about what it would be like without you here because i’ve seen it before my knees bruised on the bathroom floor the walls closed in until they collapsed and i buried my brokenness in your cin- namon curls like hermit crab shells that helped me to find new rooms to love me how we would listen to music in your car smoking cigarettes we didn’t know what to do with our mouths i won’t think about what it would be like without you from who i learned how to believe i’d never have to                              15 Ricochet   Your car wouldn’t start. I offered to drive to Costco,  where—I didn’t know—you and she would go.  You sang along to each song  I played. I cried to Neil Young you said  while I got loaded. That must have been years before.  I took the long way, bumping down the back roads,  through the traffic circle by the farm stand—  closed, but they’d be selling pumpkins  now—the loneliness in our voices entwined,  a gordian knot, neither one could undo.  You paid for my dried mangoes,  discussed the break up, and invited me inside to try  the cherry tart you wouldn’t finish by yourself.  We couldn’t bang it open on the sterile kitchen countertops.  You just gave me a hug for my 9-month chip,  and I pressed my lips into your shoulder  but didn’t grip the skin between my teeth.             16 Cherry Pit  You smiled when I knocked the ceramic mug against my crooked-tooth, a fruitless attempt to exist inconspicuous. When the lights were off, almost imperceptible, we bumped teeth, and my taste buds craved the maraschino cherries I’d seen in your fridge. Before bed, I pulled my mouthguard out from under the pillow to protect me, chewing on empty.                                    17 Cough  My parents fought about whether drinking hot or cold liquid was better for a sore throat. Cough syrup worked for me. When a cold cleared up, I still took it for the taste. They carded me at the drug store and said I hope you feel better. I downed two bottles and vomited red, fluorescent like the back of an open-late sign.                                   18 Piedmont 79  a toddler with silhouetted horses roaming across her dress watched me cry on the train home i sat so it felt like going backwards the sun shined in my eyes this morning reminded me it almost happened in october because i’d said fuck you when you tried to cut me off when you had been drinking all day i’ll never know what you said after i started trying to stop we slept facing different directions maybe i should have called a cab right then and taken it three hours home from the station i drove to the food store and the trees had undressed around university mall or whatever you call it nowadays funny how the leaves know it’s time to go even though it’s still warm out                        19 Wilderness  Someone who knows everything about me feels like a stranger and someone I feel like I’ve known my whole life knows almost nothing.  Exploring a new person can be lonely like trying to retrace steps somewhere unfamiliar, but I like how you refer to your outdoor rehab  as the wilderness. I imagine you trudging through tundra, finding yourself sleeping inside a tent on the cold floor.  When I went to the wilderness. For so long, the days dragged on, feet through mud, and suddenly I began going to sleep wanting to wake up,  excited to talk to you. Your face coming into focus while the coffeemaker on the table beside the bed heats up.                            20 I should give myself goosebumps more often  because you’ll kiss me with your fevered lips and move the pillow from behind my head and pull the ribbon out of my hair and tie my wrists together in a bow like a ballerina’s ankle and twirl me on my front I’ll be more comfortable forgetting I’ve got a figure at all still watching my reflection in the dark screen the way I saw Alicia Silverstone with that yellow plaid skirt in Clueless the first time I wondered why I didn’t look like perfection instead I’ll ask you to finish off on my face so I can’t see myself which I hate except when you call me baby which I love but makes me wish you’d carry me like an English bulldog the ones that are so ugly they’re almost cute I melt when you squeeze my thigh with your thumb and pinky finger at the same time it hurts to both want and not want something so badly I’ll say I love you so I can come up with a list of reasons you don’t that are easier for me to believe than nothing to do with the size of the space between my fingers anything besides the scope of the cosmos the color of kisses you left on my chest                   21 Portrait of the Alcoholic with Relapse Fantasy after Kaveh Akbar  She thinks the others peddling across the street know everything about her, jaywalking toward  the music, carrying like the love-sick songs arranged by the boy atop a mountain.  Having slipped inside a dress, she wants to rip her skin off less, for the first time since  the voices on her phone started to sound unfamiliar. Someone winks. The room  blushes with candlelight, while glasses of red wine flip through her  head like a kinetoscope. She remembers what it’s like to be charmed. No one  will contain her wildfire body tonight. She’s not afraid to die  a third time. There’s a rabbit’s foot in her purse. The tiny white toes chase her.                       22 Flood  Today it is raining and someone vomited outside the 7 a.m. again, the topic was step two and I thought about putting milk in my coffee but I didn’t  and I couldn’t fill in the bubbles on my exam because my hands were shaking trying to figure out what happens when I leave here would you come  I’ve always wanted to live in New York people wear all black and ask me for directions but I don’t know where to go I get lost in the town I’m from  I forgot my key and can never remember the spare I wonder where the moat out front is rushing to you’ll be off work soon  how special it is and how lucky I am to be here right now grow up so fast have so much time    

Flood

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/qv33s276w

Flood

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