Introduction to the Bed
After Franny Choi’s “Introduction to Quantum Theory”
There are many universes which concern us
as we rest in the piles of blankets and stuffies.
In one, you don’t have to carry me to the bed,
legs dragging limp as they struggle for purchase
under my crying weight. My fingers shake and scream,
digging into your arms as my only support.
There is a universe where we dance with heavy feet,
don’t care about the noise, only live in movement
of music and lightness of breath. You pull me into your
frantic moves and I can keep up effortlessly, laughing along.
Or in another universe, you dare me to race up the hill
(much like you would now) and I will nip at your heels,
scrape rubber soles against concrete and run with ease
and joy. Another where I sit in the driver’s seat,
you’re sleeping next to me as we ride the highway.
There is a universe in which you have not needed
to kiss my pain away, where I can hold you all night,
where I do not need to ask you to give me space
so my joints will not subluxate while we sleep.
And yet this story is still incomplete,
these are the universes where you found me,
where I survived long enough to find you.
I have not yet spoken of the realities in which
I was sicker earlier, where you didn’t have the patience
to learn my care, in which I didn’t have the energy to educate.
You have told me that you would prefer me to be healthy
and share in your abled-body ability, And I want to ask,
what if this is a universe where I said:
“I don’t need a cure”?
Would you still love me?
Would you still
carry me to the bed?