The Abstract Is Absent Here

Summary

The text is a prose poem reflecting on the stark reality of living in a place that lacks inspiration and is marred by poverty, juxtaposing the speaker's attempts to find beauty and personal growth against the intrusive and oppressive aspects of their environment.

Abstract

The poem "The Abstract Is Absent Here" delves into the inner thoughts of an individual grappling with the bleakness of their surroundings. The speaker acknowledges the absurdity of finding poetry in a place characterized by dilapidation and the stench of weed, yet they strive to seek out moments of beauty by imagining faeries in the concrete and collecting birdsongs. Despite their efforts to beautify their space with plants and maintain a semblance of order through routine and planning, the reality of their living conditions—marked by the smell of decay and the presence of poverty—remains inescapable. The speaker feels exposed and vulnerable, lacking the comfort of abstraction to escape into. They live with the constant fear of being intruded upon by neighbors who might covet their possessions, leading them to keep their blinds closed and their environment shielded from prying eyes. The relentless noise of domestic disputes and loud music is mitigated only by turning up the television, a temporary respite from the cacophony of life in a cheap apartment. The poem concludes with a note of gratitude to the reader, hinting at the therapeutic nature of writing from a place of hardship.

Opinions

The speaker expresses a sense of irony and futility in trying to beautify a place that is inherently unpleasant.
There is a perceived divide between the speaker and their neighbors, driven by fear of theft or intrusion, which isolates the speaker in their own home.
The speaker's living environment is personified, with the apartment seeming to groan under the weight of its inhabitants' collective despair.
The act of writing serves as a form of escape or coping mechanism for the speaker, allowing them to process and articulate their experiences from "the other side of happiness."
The poem conveys a sense of resignation, as the speaker acknowledges the inescapability of their circumstances, finding solace only in the most mundane of actions—turning up the television to drown out the world.

a prose poem

I don’t know why anyone would write a poem about this fucking place.

But alas, I see faeries in the concrete and imagine the stench of weed is simply someone sage-ing the evil spirits away from their spaces. I gather birdsongs into apps and pictures of moss and I vacuum three times a week and I have a 5-year plan and the carpal tunnel to prove it.

Who am I kidding? This place reeks. I spend a lot of time in my head figuring out how I might keep that stench off of me.

I can hang a plant, Forget-me-nots, like some sick joke with myself. I got the cheap Command hooks. They are useless, screams the ceramic — busted into the carpet with tiny seedlings, wilting already with their delicate roots exposed. I clean up the dirt and tuck the tiny roots into another pot.

I feel exposed here. Where there is no abstract for me to slip into.

I’d like to open the blinds, but they might peek in and see that my furniture is new and I have a computer here and that little sack of quarters for the laundry. They might want my chips or my last beer. They might knock. They might not.

Instead, I’ll turn up the tv to drown out the noise of some lady yelling at some man and some kid shouting at the dog and someone, somewhere who has a song on repeat with surround sound fit for a movie theater. The floorboards creak here. The stairways creak and moan here — all of it settling beneath the weight of poverty and hopelessness, made better only when you shut your blinds

and turn up the tv.

Thank you for reading. If this is your first time reading my work, do not be alarmed. Sometimes I write from the other side of happiness, just to see what words will come.