Table of Contents

 

PERSONALITY INDEX

Tyler Raso

 

I can be sewn shut I can be photographed I can stand I can tell time I can weep I trust my hands I do not lock at the sight of blood Altitude is relative Like memory Altitude, meaning your head, open Like a grapevine Like a search party Like this I am looking for something I know what it is not I will know when I am warm I can be trusted in a kitchen I can speak to children In 5 years, I will be When I dream of the end of the world It is not beautiful but You are there Holding your heart Red and liquid like a sword 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

 

 

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I have always been fascinated by the strange marriage of healing and harm that psychiatry is. "Personality Index" was, in a way, a prequel to a love letter to survival—yet a moment of entanglement with the Little Psychiatrist in all of us, clearing the throat before asking that Little Psychiatrist, politely at first, to leave. The poem is intended as a hesitant rehearsal to the fact that there is a self-regard and self-tenderness—and an openness toward others—that cannot be contained by diagnosis. As for form and sound, I wrote the poem while I was in love with Oliver de la Paz's The Boy in the Labyrinth, which I'd recommend to anybody always.