For a Moment Inside the Dark of the Plaza Theater when Isabelle Adjani Smashed Her Grocery Bag Against the Subway Wall in That One Part of Possession

Illustration for "For a Moment Inside the Dark of the Plaza Theater when Isabelle Adjani Smashed Her Grocery Bag Against the Subway Wall in That One Part of Possession" by Billie Sainwood. The conjoined heads of two brunette women. They have dark, orb-like eyes. The woman on the right has a closed mouth. The woman on the left has an open mouth, from which a ribbon with the word "AHHHH" protrudes.

For a Moment Inside the Dark of the Plaza Theater when Isabelle Adjani Smashed Her Grocery Bag Against the Subway Wall in That One Part of Possession

 

Everyone gasped and yelped
like we were all of us a dog
with 4,000 legs, 2,000 wide eyes,
1,000 lapping tongues,
struck once, hard,
by a thirty foot woman 


with a scream bleeding
out of her dress
and spilling out of the screen
and sticking to under the seats
like old soda.

 

We were quiet and with her
monstrous and bursting
chimeric with empathy

and she screamed for us
for our divorces
for our troubles at work
for our politics
and past mistakes
for our friends who hate us now
for all our unresolved issues and angers
and outrages.

 

She screamed and for that moment
we were struck, hard
like a tuning fork.

 

For that moment in the dark
bright with her rage
flickering with her terror
we were all of us together,
with her,
with each other.

 

We were one
and, with her mouth,
we were screaming.

Billie Sainwood is a poet, performer, and trans menace living in Atlanta. Her work has been featured in Had Magazine, The Memezine, and in her poetry collection WHAT WAS EATEN WAS GIVEN. Her one-woman show, 36 VIEWS: A STORY OF TITS AND POETRY, recently premiered at the Atlanta Fringe Festival.