poetry: dislocation (eight of swords, reversed)

“dislocation (eight of swords, reversed)” was the very first poem I ever sold, way back in January 2020. I got paid $5 - at the time, the most I had ever been paid for anything I wrote.

We were hearing rumors about this novel coroavirus and I was waiting for an appointment with a geneticist to confirm my rheumatologist diagnosis of “joint hypermobility syndrome - Type III” (an incoherent jumble of “joint hypermobility syndrome” and “Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - Type III” (the old name for hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome)) while I was living in Frederick, Maryland for the first time and longing for Tokyo.

I had honestly kind of forgotten about this poem and never expected it to see the light of day, so imagine my surprsie when I got an email from the editor saying it (and everyone’s) poems had been published! It’s like a time capsule, a message from a distant past - a past so long ago and far away it might as well be another world.

A poem is like a portal.