Bill Murray Walks Into A Party Somewhere

and does the dishes, scrapes them clean of any mess made,
how he knows the way a thing can be made clean again
with enough pressure. If the right person uses
enough force anything can disappear.
How a plate can become fresh again, but will never
not be dirty, just less tarnished.
Bill Murray goes to the party and throws
everyone’s phones off the balcony, scrapes
any trace of himself from the scene,
how he knows the way a record can be kept
if the dirt dries and sticks to the porcelain.
Bill Murray goes to the party like a haunting
and tells everyone how they won’t be believed,
does this enough that everyone knows to take
him in with a grain of salt, hoping for a story to go well,
for an empty sink at the end of the night and
someone to believe you when you say how a ghost
has graced your bones, how you want to think
this as paranormal and nothing else, how
my rapist enters the concert and I disappear like smoke.
There’s something to be said about magicians, and their
ability to escape clean, how no one goes looking for them
to turn up as if they will regardless of if you want a return
or not. My rapist enters the concert and starts doing the dishes,
cleaning the palate of the people who call my name-song,
a bird call, a dead thing resurrected again.
They know how you can’t let something sit out to dry if it bled,
how it makes things harder to clean, how you need to address
the problems with soap and water and elbow grease.
How if you use enough force anything can become Not dirty again.
Bill Murray enters the park and covers your eyes, whispers
in your ear “in 2008 in Charleston my now ex-wife
filed a suit against me in court regarding
the domestic violence I committed toward her,
how in the latest account she was lucky that the god of me
did not murder her, how I say all of this because
I know you will never believe me, and no one will
believe you.” He then walks, or evaporates into a movie
you’re uncomfortable watching because of the way
the director portrays women.
Bill Murray’s face on a t-shirt talks to me as I walk
through neighborhoods I don’t feel safe in, I mean
neighborhoods I spent in your clutch, I mean
places where I never return to. The body’s disbelief
that it happened, or that people will believe me,
or that they believe me anyways and don’t care.
My rapist walks into the concert and stands behind me
and I am a phone thrown off the balcony,
how any picture taken is a blurred image,
how the worry of those who know
comes after the show is over,
how I am not dirty anymore, but it’s hard
to get all of the grime off a plate if you let it sit.
How it chips and dries, and holds onto an idea
people are unwilling to believe to be true
or, are ready to believe it and not care.

By Alain Ginsberg

Biography:

Alain Ginsberg is an agender writer and performer from Baltimore City, MD whose work focuses on gender, sexuality, and trauma. Their work has been published or is forthcoming from Pressure Gauge, Black Heart Magazine, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. Outside of writing they are most commonly found watching dogs or dog related content.