Alexandra Corinth
Alexandra Corinth (she/they) is a disabled writer and artist based in DFW. Her chaplet, DEUS EX DIAGNOSI, was published by Damaged Goods Press in 2019. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Philosophical Idiot, Barren Magazine, Entropy, SWWIM, and Glass: Poets Resist, among others. She is also an editorial assistant for the Southwest Review.
Find Alexandra here: Alexandra Corinth // @mermaidshewrote mermaidshewrote.com typewriterbelle@gmail.com | mermaidshewrote@gmail.com |
Language Barriers
A man sits next to me on the subway
in a Subway restaurant
on a park bench in September
what do I say to his hands
hungry for skin and my quiet open mouth
our fingers do not speak the same language
or I am bilingual and he listened to his father
where does my body become invitation
why does he read it as welcome mat
if I scream as if stung will he die in my palms
or will his voice rise over mine until I am no longer sorry
I am a mouse lucky and desperate
and he, glorious beast fang and fur
blesses me with a smile before swallowing me whole
no stray bones or hair clinging to his teeth
no blood or grit or bile staining his jaw
all the broken pieces held inside my skin
He stands beside me on an elevator
at an art gallery
in line at Starbucks
and I learn to see the feasting before he smiles
learn how to run
how to never look
back
in a Subway restaurant
on a park bench in September
what do I say to his hands
hungry for skin and my quiet open mouth
our fingers do not speak the same language
or I am bilingual and he listened to his father
where does my body become invitation
why does he read it as welcome mat
if I scream as if stung will he die in my palms
or will his voice rise over mine until I am no longer sorry
I am a mouse lucky and desperate
and he, glorious beast fang and fur
blesses me with a smile before swallowing me whole
no stray bones or hair clinging to his teeth
no blood or grit or bile staining his jaw
all the broken pieces held inside my skin
He stands beside me on an elevator
at an art gallery
in line at Starbucks
and I learn to see the feasting before he smiles
learn how to run
how to never look
back
Commentary
Alexandra on "Language Barriers":
Like many women, I have experienced a formative amount of harassment throughout my life. In places as “expected” as a public transit to the less expected fast food restaurant, men have approached me as strangers and friends to appraise my body.
This has become even more common since I first started using mobility devices. Chronic pain has shaped my life even more than the decades-long commentary – I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2017, though began experiencing symptoms at age 13, and await genetic testing to confirm a connective tissue disorder. The unsolicited feedback I receive now is no less invasive, but significantly more “socially acceptable” – inquiries into my health status, challenges to my need for a mobility device, and “jokes” that jab at my very identity.
When discussing this behavior, I have always felt like I am speaking another language, something that only those who have been harassed in this way understand. The narrator of the poem says “I am bilingual” because she can understand what her harassers are saying, but they cannot understand her when she explains why their words do not make a compliment.
I wrote the final stanza from a place of sadness – it is a reflection on a realization that I fear most men now, even the ones I know. Places that were once just places now feel inherently unsafe. This isn’t something that I am proud or happy about, but I see as an understandable defense mechanism developed in response to years of hurt. The narrator says, “I learn to see the feasting before he smiles,” and my heart breaks for this version of myself – that I don’t give many men a chance to prove me wrong, to be different.
The final two lines are broken as they are – “how to never look/back” – to try to leave the outcome ambiguous. Is the narrator not looking as she is devoured over and over again, or has she already run so far that she can’t finish the thought before the line breaks, or does she really not look back? I don’t know the answer to that. I’m interested to see what readers of Kissing Dynamite think.
EIC Christine Taylor on "Language Barriers":
Alexandra's poem "Language Barriers" spoke to me immediately because I routinely find myself in situations where my body is objectified: people take liberty touching my hair, running their fingers over my tattoos, staring closely at piercings and asking if they hurt. I remember once telling someone how offensive his gestures were only to receive some quip about being an attention-seeker with the way I look.
I love the way Alexandra employs spacing and line breaks in this poem--the journey through the text mimics the confused, broken, hyper-vigilant feeling one has when trying to navigate the dynamic of protecting the body and the self while simultaneously seeking space to exist.
Like many women, I have experienced a formative amount of harassment throughout my life. In places as “expected” as a public transit to the less expected fast food restaurant, men have approached me as strangers and friends to appraise my body.
This has become even more common since I first started using mobility devices. Chronic pain has shaped my life even more than the decades-long commentary – I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2017, though began experiencing symptoms at age 13, and await genetic testing to confirm a connective tissue disorder. The unsolicited feedback I receive now is no less invasive, but significantly more “socially acceptable” – inquiries into my health status, challenges to my need for a mobility device, and “jokes” that jab at my very identity.
When discussing this behavior, I have always felt like I am speaking another language, something that only those who have been harassed in this way understand. The narrator of the poem says “I am bilingual” because she can understand what her harassers are saying, but they cannot understand her when she explains why their words do not make a compliment.
I wrote the final stanza from a place of sadness – it is a reflection on a realization that I fear most men now, even the ones I know. Places that were once just places now feel inherently unsafe. This isn’t something that I am proud or happy about, but I see as an understandable defense mechanism developed in response to years of hurt. The narrator says, “I learn to see the feasting before he smiles,” and my heart breaks for this version of myself – that I don’t give many men a chance to prove me wrong, to be different.
The final two lines are broken as they are – “how to never look/back” – to try to leave the outcome ambiguous. Is the narrator not looking as she is devoured over and over again, or has she already run so far that she can’t finish the thought before the line breaks, or does she really not look back? I don’t know the answer to that. I’m interested to see what readers of Kissing Dynamite think.
EIC Christine Taylor on "Language Barriers":
Alexandra's poem "Language Barriers" spoke to me immediately because I routinely find myself in situations where my body is objectified: people take liberty touching my hair, running their fingers over my tattoos, staring closely at piercings and asking if they hurt. I remember once telling someone how offensive his gestures were only to receive some quip about being an attention-seeker with the way I look.
I love the way Alexandra employs spacing and line breaks in this poem--the journey through the text mimics the confused, broken, hyper-vigilant feeling one has when trying to navigate the dynamic of protecting the body and the self while simultaneously seeking space to exist.