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Myth by Natasha Trethewey

By T.

15 April 2021

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Myth
Natasha Trethewey

I was asleep while you were dying.
It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,

the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking

you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.

*

Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.

But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in—still, trying—

I make between my slumber and my waking.
It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

MARGINALIA

1.
You always write about the heavy things, R. told me tonight. I feel it land like a rebuke. Try to be happier, he says, before ending the call.

2.
Heavy things. Sad things. Listlessness. Lassitudes. Malaise. I suppose so. Look: I don’t go to bed planning to be lonely tomorrow. But you know how it is, how life unfolds and reveals your aches even when you’re unprepared for it. I think especially then.

3.
I need to finish writing about grief, I wrote M. one evening, so I can finally let it go. She understands. It has been twelve years since he died, and it has been long enough. It has been nine years since I got help and it has been long enough. But what is long enough, do you think? What is loss. What is the anguish of living. What are the scars we carry. In some universe, he is always dying. In some universe, I don’t succeed in making it out of the deep dark. In some universe, I am always drowning. In some universe, love is enough.

4.
Yes, I know I have to find a way to write about other things in my life. Maybe some of my grief can live in a book where it will always be tended to. Then again: maybe we need to tell our myths as a testimony to how things began. In this universe, it seems I am always beginning.

5.
I do try. Look: just awhile ago I bit into a perfectly toasted bagel topped with a kind of cheese that has almonds and fruit in it, and I thought, well, we’re alright, aren’t we, T.? I turned around to tell my grandfather about it. And then I remember.

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This poem appeared in Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, published by Mariner Books, 2007. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)

ABOUT NATASHA TRETHEWEY

Poet Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19^th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014). She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Native Guard (2006), for which she was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize; Monument: Poems New and Selected (2018); Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010); and a memoir, Memorial Drive (2020). She is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the

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