Rita Feinstein
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Rita Feinstein (she/her) is the author of the poetry chapbook Life on Dodge (Brain Mill Press, 2018). Her stories and poems have appeared in Permafrost, Grist, and Willow Springs, among other publications, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. She is a graduate of Oregon State University's MFA program.
Website: https://ritafeinstein.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @RitaFeinstein |
This Isn't an Apology
It’s just a dream of pulling a horse-print shirt
over my black bra and hoping you’d walk in on me—
a reverse burlesque to undo the winter night
I arranged myself like fruit on your sheets,
blushing skin and secret core,
a wax facsimile of sweetness.
Your body formed a suspension bridge
over mine, which must’ve made me the river,
something you crossed over
without ever really touching.
Or you might’ve been the mirror
mounted over your snake tank,
seeing only my limp loveliness
and not the scaly seething underneath.
This isn’t an apology, but I took
your eyes, your hands, your mouth,
and discarded the rest. I never thanked
you for the chocolates, but I ate them all.
This isn’t an apology, but once
I stole your clementine
and you blamed everyone
at the table but me.
You were the exposed skin
and I was the anesthetic
in a vampire bat’s tongue.
You never even felt the cuts.
Once I said I love you
right as the parking meter expired.
I would’ve said anything
to get out of the cold.
over my black bra and hoping you’d walk in on me—
a reverse burlesque to undo the winter night
I arranged myself like fruit on your sheets,
blushing skin and secret core,
a wax facsimile of sweetness.
Your body formed a suspension bridge
over mine, which must’ve made me the river,
something you crossed over
without ever really touching.
Or you might’ve been the mirror
mounted over your snake tank,
seeing only my limp loveliness
and not the scaly seething underneath.
This isn’t an apology, but I took
your eyes, your hands, your mouth,
and discarded the rest. I never thanked
you for the chocolates, but I ate them all.
This isn’t an apology, but once
I stole your clementine
and you blamed everyone
at the table but me.
You were the exposed skin
and I was the anesthetic
in a vampire bat’s tongue.
You never even felt the cuts.
Once I said I love you
right as the parking meter expired.
I would’ve said anything
to get out of the cold.
Commentary
Rita on “This Isn't an Apology”:
In my writing and in my dreams, I’m always returning to my first relationship. I was seventeen, drunk on my own drama, everything new and electric to the touch. It’s a well of inspiration that never runs dry—that youthful paradox of arrogance and fragility, the furtive euphoria of making out in the backseat and wondering who’s going to hurt who first. I was ultimately the one to end things, but it was a messy break. Over a decade later, I still dream about apologizing to him. This poem is an attempt to reconcile my resentments with my regrets.
“This Isn’t An Apology” was a difficult poem to write. Though I’ve always sworn by the tidiness of a single central metaphor, I knew this poem needed to take a different shape—a litany of imagery to represent the tumult and confusion of the relationship. The speaker tries on one metaphor after another in an attempt to understand where the blame lies and to delay the final couplet where she confronts her own selfishness and insensitivity.
Of all the poems I’ve written about my ex, this one feels the most honest. Once I abandoned a linear narrative, the imagery let me access the poem’s main tensions—feeling both desired and unseen, both victim and villain.
Though this is a poem about regret, I look back on this time of my life with tenderness. It’s hard being seventeen and always feeling like you’re the tortured protagonist of your own story. These days, I primarily write young adult fiction, where I get to marinate in those big feelings for 300+ pages. I think I’ll always be obsessed with how youth and first love amplify everything and give ordinary objects—like clementines and parking meters—an almost cosmic significance.
Assistant Editor Belinda Munyeza on “This Isn't an Apology”:
“This Isn’t an Apology” opens right away with a precisely vivid metaphor that immediately points the reader towards the emotions the poem aims to cumulatively elicit. We are plunged right away into longing with a twinge of regret and hope. And then layer by layer, couplet by couplet, Feinstein provides rich imagery, similes, and metaphors that intensify the speaker’s nostalgia, making us feel it viscerally. What’s more, the musicality of the poem makes it so lulling and irresistible. But at the same time, Feinstein’s commitment to the past tense and her use of sibilance signify something sinister in the poem; they mirror the deceit interwoven with the beauty that the persona reflects on in hindsight. It all culminates in the directness of the ending feeling incisive, intense, and revelatory, and the poem being quite unforgettable.
In my writing and in my dreams, I’m always returning to my first relationship. I was seventeen, drunk on my own drama, everything new and electric to the touch. It’s a well of inspiration that never runs dry—that youthful paradox of arrogance and fragility, the furtive euphoria of making out in the backseat and wondering who’s going to hurt who first. I was ultimately the one to end things, but it was a messy break. Over a decade later, I still dream about apologizing to him. This poem is an attempt to reconcile my resentments with my regrets.
“This Isn’t An Apology” was a difficult poem to write. Though I’ve always sworn by the tidiness of a single central metaphor, I knew this poem needed to take a different shape—a litany of imagery to represent the tumult and confusion of the relationship. The speaker tries on one metaphor after another in an attempt to understand where the blame lies and to delay the final couplet where she confronts her own selfishness and insensitivity.
Of all the poems I’ve written about my ex, this one feels the most honest. Once I abandoned a linear narrative, the imagery let me access the poem’s main tensions—feeling both desired and unseen, both victim and villain.
Though this is a poem about regret, I look back on this time of my life with tenderness. It’s hard being seventeen and always feeling like you’re the tortured protagonist of your own story. These days, I primarily write young adult fiction, where I get to marinate in those big feelings for 300+ pages. I think I’ll always be obsessed with how youth and first love amplify everything and give ordinary objects—like clementines and parking meters—an almost cosmic significance.
Assistant Editor Belinda Munyeza on “This Isn't an Apology”:
“This Isn’t an Apology” opens right away with a precisely vivid metaphor that immediately points the reader towards the emotions the poem aims to cumulatively elicit. We are plunged right away into longing with a twinge of regret and hope. And then layer by layer, couplet by couplet, Feinstein provides rich imagery, similes, and metaphors that intensify the speaker’s nostalgia, making us feel it viscerally. What’s more, the musicality of the poem makes it so lulling and irresistible. But at the same time, Feinstein’s commitment to the past tense and her use of sibilance signify something sinister in the poem; they mirror the deceit interwoven with the beauty that the persona reflects on in hindsight. It all culminates in the directness of the ending feeling incisive, intense, and revelatory, and the poem being quite unforgettable.
