"ab vulcao 3" by Márcia Tannure
Some of us travelers by Natalie E. Illum
If you squint, the highways look like weakened arteries; the rivers veins. A bypass through
a small town could save your life. My body is a not a small town. I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean
only once. You drove down Hwy 101 from Oregon to San Francisco. We laughed at the lack
of guardrails. When we argued, we threatened to drive the car off the edge, convinced
only one of us could live. Push pins make me slightly angry. Why hang a cork board full of
places you won’t get to? I’ve been in this room for 97 days. I am not mad at the sunlight
I can see – the aloe plant someone else will water. I could stare long enough
so the curve of the bedrail becomes a mountain. We could say I am in training for a marathon –
the bathroom is the 5K mark. The grab bars form a highway from East to West, just in case I can
get out of bed. Metaphors used to make this easier. Now I stick to the square footage of my
body. An exterminator once told me that mice prefer to move along the edges of things.
They rarely go out into the open spaces of the living room. I do not think this is true.
I am not a mouse. I have been in this room for 231 days. Both of my feet are the work of
Frankenstein’s doctor. But I will no longer say that thing about scars; how they form maps;
tributaries. I’m not telling you who stares most at which body part now, or who stopped looking.
The walls of my room are not depressed. There is a tryptic of the ocean. I’m pretty
sure it’s the Pacific. On the left wall, a landscape of where my Grandmother lived;
an oil painting of Lyme Regis I found in a rubbish shop. There’s a river there, too.
There’s always a river some of us can’t swim in.
a small town could save your life. My body is a not a small town. I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean
only once. You drove down Hwy 101 from Oregon to San Francisco. We laughed at the lack
of guardrails. When we argued, we threatened to drive the car off the edge, convinced
only one of us could live. Push pins make me slightly angry. Why hang a cork board full of
places you won’t get to? I’ve been in this room for 97 days. I am not mad at the sunlight
I can see – the aloe plant someone else will water. I could stare long enough
so the curve of the bedrail becomes a mountain. We could say I am in training for a marathon –
the bathroom is the 5K mark. The grab bars form a highway from East to West, just in case I can
get out of bed. Metaphors used to make this easier. Now I stick to the square footage of my
body. An exterminator once told me that mice prefer to move along the edges of things.
They rarely go out into the open spaces of the living room. I do not think this is true.
I am not a mouse. I have been in this room for 231 days. Both of my feet are the work of
Frankenstein’s doctor. But I will no longer say that thing about scars; how they form maps;
tributaries. I’m not telling you who stares most at which body part now, or who stopped looking.
The walls of my room are not depressed. There is a tryptic of the ocean. I’m pretty
sure it’s the Pacific. On the left wall, a landscape of where my Grandmother lived;
an oil painting of Lyme Regis I found in a rubbish shop. There’s a river there, too.
There’s always a river some of us can’t swim in.
Natalie E. Illum is a poet, disability activist and singer living in Washington DC. She is recipient of 3 Poetry Fellowship Grants from the DC Arts Commission and a former Jenny McKean Moore Fellow. She was a founded board member of mothertongue, an LGBTQA open mic that lasted 15 years. She competed on the National Poetry Slam circuit and was the 2013 Beltway Grand Slam Champion. Her work has appeared in various publications, and on NPR’s Snap Judgement. Natalie has an MFA in Creative Writing from American University and is a Teaching Artist for Poetry Out Loud. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter as @poetryrox, and as one half of All Her Muses. Natalie also enjoys Joni Mitchell, whiskey and giraffes.
Márcia Tannure is a visual artist, born in Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. She started her artistic practice when studying porcelain painting. Later, she studied observation and artistic design at INAP / MG. She graduated in Social Work from PUC-Minas with a postgraduate degree in art therapy from Projeto Terra / MG. Some years later she moved to Rio de Janeiro / RJ, where she studied Sculpture at the School of Fine Arts of UFRJ. At the visual arts school Parque Lage she studied contemporary art and exhibition design. She currently lives in Niterói / RJ, Brazil, where she develops research in fire arts and has great inspiration from nature. You can find her on instagram: @marciatannure
