Sharon Venezio

BECAUSE I WANT TO REMEMBER LILAC


is this how we find out about ourselves?
screaming at each other in a rental car,
truck stop families poking by.

i don’t look at their faces.
after a while they’re all the same,
it doesn’t matter what city.

even your mouth is the same,
spit pooling in the corners
as your anger swells.

i think of the year i was reading
sartre. the idea of indifference
seemed important.

as if i could be so removed from the living.
as if that would prevent suffering.

more and more i wonder:
am i merely the sum of my years with you,
grasping whatever i can to survive?

i am thinking about whitman,

determined to understand,
determined to nod my head yes
when i hear the word love.

Sharon Venezio is a Los Angeles based poet, who received an MA in creative writing from San Francisco State University, where she was the recipient of the Mark Linenthal Award for Poetry. Some of her work can be found in Transfer, Parthenon West Review, Iris, The Northridge Review as well as other online and print journals.