)ORULGD6WDWH8QLYHUVLW\/LEUDULHV 2020 Mondays, Calls from your Mother, and All the Things We've Lost Emilee Anne Wigglesworth Follow this and additional works at DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! MONDAYS, CALLS FROM YOUR MOTHER, AND ALL THE THINGS WE’VE LOST ! ! ! ! ! ! ! By EMILEE WIGGLESWORTH ! ! ! ! ! ! A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Summer, 2021 ! ! ! ! ! ! The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Emilee Wigglesworth defended on November 20, 2020 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Dr. David Kirby, Thesis Director ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Ms. Carrie Ann Baade, Outside Committee Member ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Dr. James Kimbrell, Committee Member ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Dr. Russ Franklin, Committee Member ! ! ! 2 ANGELS LANDING, DEVIL’S TOWER ................................................................................................... 4 NOVEMBER 3RD, 2019 ................................................................................................................................ 5 I FOUND THE CLEARING IN THE FOREST WHERE GOD KEEPS ALL THE BRIDGES YOU CAN CROSS INTO HEAVEN, BUT THEY’RE ROTTED AWAY .................................................................... 6 OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY WAITING TO MEET WITH MY FRIEND, MARISA, TO TALK ABOUT WHAT WE MISSED OVER HOLIDAY BREAK ...................................................................................... 8 I SAW HEAVEN WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN, FAINT, AND DAYS FROM DROPPING TO THE FLOOR, HALF-DEAD ................................................................................................................................. 9 IF I AM LIKE MY MOTHER, THEN YOU ARE LIKE YOUR FATHER .............................................. 11 CYCLES ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 FEBRUARY AND THE THIRTEEN MONDAYS I’VE LIVED WITHOUT HIM ................................. 13 TRANSLUSCENT SKIES ON A RAINY AFTERNOON IN MARCH ................................................... 14 STOMPING IN ANTHILLS AND ALL THE REASONS HE SHOULDN’T BE WITH ME ................. 15 MAKING FROGS EXPLORE THE SEWER; DROWNING FOR THE CAUSE OF CURIOUS SEVEN- YEAR-OLDS .............................................................................................................................................. 16 WARNING SOUTH FLORIDIANS: FALLING IGUANAS .................................................................... 17 RESILLIENCE: A CASE STUDY ............................................................................................................. 19 GIRLS TREMBLING IN THE SUNSET ................................................................................................... 20 STARING OUT THE WINDOW OF THE CITY BUS ON A RAINY EVENING .................................. 21 BLACK DEATH ......................................................................................................................................... 22 CHAPPED LIPS, PRESSED THIGHS, AND SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNINGS IN EARLY JULY ........................................................................................................................................................... 23 MONDAYS, CALLS FROM YOUR MOTHER, AND ALL THE THINGS WE’VE LOST ................... 24 I WISH YOU HAD BEEN AT THE MITSKI CONCERT ........................................................................ 26 TO CARL AND VICTOR, WHO WERE THE BROTHERS I NEVER HAD ......................................... 27 THE PEARL ............................................................................................................................................... 29 LIPSTICK STAINS IN YOUR EMPTY BED ........................................................................................... 30 BABY BIRDS FREE-FALLING FROM THEIR NEST ............................................................................ 31 PRESSED FLOWERS, AFTERNOON SHOWERS, AND ALL THE REASONS I CAN’T GET OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING ..................................................................................................................... 32 SUSPENDED IN THE SKY WITH YOU, LAST SPRING ...................................................................... 33 I WILL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE LONGING FOR EVERYTHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN .......................................................................................................................................................... 34 POEM WITH A SHORT TITLE ................................................................................................................ 35 THE FIRST TIME VISITING THE HOUSE YOU GREW UP IN ........................................................... 36 STORMY, THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT RABBIT ............................................................................... 37 IF I CLOSE MY EYES, I CAN FEEL YOUR HAND ON MY CHEEK .................................................. 38 WAITING FOR THE CALL FROM BEYOND ........................................................................................ 39 ! 3 ANGELS LANDING, DEVIL’S TOWER I am not a monolith. I am not a stone that stands firmly in place despite the weather, despite the erosion that casts a shadow on the way things were, but only in their beginning. When we unravel the pain, where does it leave us standing but with a hand full of pebbles and a collection of sixty-four pennies? You cannot carve me into a statue of beauty and grace, for you have never given me the lips with which to speak and to kiss the women who showed me what it means to love someone that won’t ask you to be a rock or an amethyst or the pink chalcedony I picked out and she bought me, on the day after he touched me and stripped away my skin; tapping lightly on a breast that had been chiseled from the breast of a mother and her mother before that, both bearing witness to men in the pursuit of pleasure sans pain. What we take lies before us in the dim moonlight, watching only for the sake of watching. Eyes of judgement shall be cast on you for what you want, what you steal, what you can never return because it has been dirtied by the tobacco underneath your nails and the stench of blood filling your lungs– with each breath you are drowning, but blood does not simmer, it boils, bubbles, and coats your voice until you are begging for ice that will not melt: a rock so pure that when you saw it, you were sure it had to be crystal. I am a woman who has been carved from the canyons and chasms so deep, they do not echo. Their screams into my belly do not escape into the windless nights of December, I carry them with me, and their cries go unanswered because I am not a monolith. I am not a stone that stands firmly in place. ! 4 NOVEMBER 3RD, 2019 Sometimes I cruelly think it would be better if we had never become friends, then I would not have this pain of losing him. ! 5 I FOUND THE CLEARING IN THE FOREST WHERE GOD KEEPS ALL THE BRIDGES YOU CAN CROSS INTO HEAVEN, BUT THEY’RE ROTTED AWAY I am looking to find the way past the bridges and the openings through the leaves in the sycamore trees, where the sunlight floods through and I can see his shadow waiting to dance with me in the joyous reunion of love, taken, quickly without remorse, or even a moment to whisper: goodbye, don’t go, I want you, only you, and I will keep you alive through my undying adoration. May I cross to the other side where the brook runs over the smoothed stones or is He standing, arms crossed, a silent watcher – making sure I do not step forward onto the molded planks of honey-colored cedar wood? It has blackened from weakness and pond water; I am too afraid to ask if there is another way across the sloshing waters to meet my lost friend. What can I do when I am choking; my face turned blue from the loss, or worse, the act of losing? God, I know you can see me on the phone, answering the same call every morning before sunrise– his mother and the single tear she shed telling me her son, oh her beloved son, is dead. It is five a.m. and I am waking to the ringing and the dread and then stumbling through my kitchen, grasping for the countertops so I do not slip through the cracks in our faux wooden floor. I am gasping for the air from our conditioner and crawling to my roommate’s bedroom, dragging my legs, my torso; inching forward until I can reach for the arm of the couch and learn to stand again, like a calf first ! 6 finding its footing on the pasture where its mother grazes and doesn’t have to think about how she’d muster the strength to chew grass after the loss of her baby. He called her, said that weekend was the happiest he’d ever been, ever will be, and how do you stand on two feet when every bone in your body has snapped in three, for there’s nothing to make her whole again, that’s what she said to me over the phone to let me know the toxicology report came back clean, and we are reminded of his responsibility, like we didn’t know he was perfect– so kind, his father has likened him to Jesus in his eulogy that I downloaded to a hard drive on my computer because I got stuck five hours from the funeral without a ride or a license to drive and I got drunk instead and my friends said it’s the happiest they’d ever seen me, which I know means he’s here, hand on my shoulder, waiting