Poetry: “Self Portrait as Patron Saint of DayQuil” by Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong

Self Portrait as Patron Saint of DayQuil

I used to think that saints were saints
because of a suffering that removed them from their bodies
but then I took too much acetaminophen and realized
it could happen to anyone. I made a sextape with a stranger
an hour long the day after a boy I didn't know I never loved 
left me and lying on the floor the morning after
I stared at the video and studied it and forgot 
to jack off. I think I was holding out
for something more to happen than the fact
of our bodies, some other, final nakedness,
but the tape just kept ending and starting over
until I understood what was missing was not specifically 
desire, or love, which were both absent, but only side effects 
of what my body really missed, which was its soul.
It was like watching the ambulance I called for myself
that night I thought I overdosed
drive away, finally, without me—
watching myself, I mean, struggle blindly
through the motions of sex, as though trying
to do what actually makes saints
saints: not being outside of themselves
but finding their way back in again. That night 
I didn't want to kill myself. I only wanted the fever
to go away, fast, and didn't care what it took,
and if my body was a wide, open street I had passed
earlier that day, and looked down, then my soul
must have been the two people fighting in the middle, a man
on the ground shielding his face with both his hands,
another man covering him with his shadow
screaming put your hands on me one more time.

About Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong

Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong is from Oregon. Her work can be found in ONLY POEMS, Shenandoah, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Columbia Review, among others. Find her on Instagram at @kayleejeong