We Make Ourselves
By Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
She always carries her things: Body of proof
careening, commenting, big and vocal.
They get personal. Hey kiddo.
A big fan. A dust up. Twitter. Protect
your details. Never share your number.
And this is how it begins:
Imagine water and an old friend.
It sounds like a paradise, a pet on Twitter.
Normally I’d kill time all day long.
My character is exhausted. Avoiding
the script, escaping into I’d marry you.
I wish I want to build something good.
I dreamed about old friends, dancing
at the war. Maybe love is a lot
to memorize. I drink. I’m drinking
at midnight. I’m white noise. People
find me sometimes, this world
of jerks. Before sleep I will delete
this: I have a friend who was a sham.
I used to know a door in a world
floating in the air. Dignity off kilter.
Kill the fiction, a thing I can handle.
This heart, it’s always mad. I wish I was
a man already. They’re for real. Or not.
Am I in trouble? I go online. It feels
a little icky but I’m intrigued by
rejection. It just is. It was like I wasn’t
even acting. Everything a big spiderweb.
We make ourselves. Who did I let in?
You changed. The first rays of dawn
begin to cut. Please tell me who you are.
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
Commissioned by the Goodman Theatre, in collaboration with
The Poetry Foundation, in relation to their production of Highway Patrol, for their 23/24 season
January 2024
In Conversation with Poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
ABOUT thE POET
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an African American writer, poet, artist, and educator who works at the intersection of computation, AI, race, and gender. They are the author of Travesty Generator (Noemi Press), a book of computational poetry that received the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Anna Rabinowitz prize for interdisciplinary work and longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. They are the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Their other poetry books include How Narrow My Escapes (DIAGRAM/New Michigan), Personal Science (Tupelo Press), a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press), and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press). Their fifth book, Negative Money, is available now. They direct the MFA in creative writing program at the University of Maryland.