Two Poems by Eli Blumfield
"Limerence" and "As it Escapes Me"
Limerence
Could I ask you to move for me? no, move for me, in my place breathe for me forget to eat for me the air would leave the room to fill your lungs and make your claim then this vacuum might seize me aloft then could you breathe me? speak me? I’m working hard to lose my shape so I can be the sour gas that slips from your languid lips that barely register the change. I’d join the power and esteem of everything that you forget you say.
As it Escapes Me
I started writing down moments in my life in case I forgot them in shorthand like these little technical notes that were supposed to store for me what made me me I went back to read them and it was mostly names and actions people things I did to them and when I was worried about seeming too proud datafying times as they were torn off of me designing naming and knowing forgive me for that I’ve overwritten forgiving myself processed the act of processing system-built a portable office in my head trained a manager who told me to file/fire myself I titled the file “as it escapes me” and started writing down the times and names I didn’t want to forget it’s like I’ve masked my mind I tried to compress one side of moments and take every participant with me crushed into this tight little ball as if I wouldn’t enfold myself storing me outside of me in a dead sphere of science
About the author: Eli Blumfield (he/him) is an author of poetry and fiction currently residing in Queens, New York. He hasn’t left the city for more than a long weekend in his entire life. His interests include: self-as-commodity, the perils of absorbing images, being priced out of your home city, mystifying crises, New York Jets football, plastic canons, and a collective addiction to narrativizing.