In the early 2000s, I found myself really into the Beat era of literature and exploring that scene. William S. Burroughs is a local author who was popular in the Beat era. He utilized what is called the “cut up” experimentation method of writing. He learned this from a painter, Brion Gysin.

I have experimented with a stream-of-consciousness piece and cut up some of it and edited it into a poem.

The result is below.

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All I had was birthdays and
these trying few.
My holding conversations,
stories,
constellations for why I’m running.
Not writing or holding my breath.
They wonder
did we see lines like breathing sometimes?

Especially those I long to remember –
the air of the lungs I journal about,
things I am told to write of and the lover
of which I am incapable of writing,
the body he and me cannot share
because air he loved like so
(like need).

For to be a cigarette is something I wished.
Smoking, gasping, and in his lungs
deeply unbroken.
You knew first: water.
And do as philosophy,
go to the depths.
I finally dove but too deep.

When not gasping,
you and I long for that sensation,
holding your breath,
holding my breath.
And you’re punctuation.
A wish for a concept.
A wish for me.
Let me be intimate,
young.
All I had was birthdays and
these trying few.

Isabelle Palerma