It Never Happened by Millie Ferguson
Now I forget how to think. So crack my skull. Rearrange me.”
—It Never Happened, The National
As if tenderness were a given, give up.
Grow up or stay as young as inhumanly possible.
All at once I’m a 15-year-old-boy-scout-drop-out
and mee-maw I once met in a blue chair,
waiting by an entrance. Which middle ground
between the two would you like to love?
Every year, I take stock. Rewind to “this day.”
On that day, nothing happened. It’s February 6th
at 12:58 PM and I never became Frank O’Hara.
I’m having this poem for lunch because I couldn’t
possibly order anything and my fridge is full of empty boxes.
Sometimes I think I’m only an empty box, my files
scattered on the floor. But not today. Wind up a wound.
Wound down in the wind. Every word is a joke.
I love to play. I find my way through to you sonically.
Sound out what I assume you are hearing when I
rewind to tell the story better. We all need context
past the head tilt, finger to ear,
“Please?”
Artist’s Statement
I consider myself a collector. When my practice was primarily Fine Art presented in a gallery, I would gather my materials and arrange them obsessively until I told myself to “fuck off” as a point of satisfaction. My poems are a collection of experiences which burst out of me when I can no longer remain private. My current project is in response to the phrase, “it’s like it never happened,” which is something I used to proclaim the morning after a blackout, or in response to a bender, or after I had sex with my upstairs neighbors boyfriend for no reason. In those moments I didn’t expect consequence, neither good nor bad, because if I pretended something hadn’t happened then it was just as good as oblivion. Fortunately, I’ve begun to atone for these misdeeds. “It’s like it never happened,” is stuck in my head and I keep a list of whenever I hear or read these words in the media I ravenously devour. These poems are in response to the instance in which this phrase appears and which memories it triggers. Memories are often impossible to recall—they shift. I have trouble piecing everything I’ve done together left to right, down the page, from beginning to end. I’ve collected my life, but language holds me hostage. Collection is a cost, an exchange of something with considerable value. I consider myself collected.
Millie Ferguson was born in Portland, Oregon, but has since made herself at home in Covington, Kentucky, where she teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and is a craft bartender. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars in January 2020. Her work appears in various forms, both poetically and visually, but most recently in Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, and Defunct Mag. Millie Ferguson is not left-handed and loves a good bowl of soup.