Suyin Du Bois
In Which Amy Sherman-Palladino Directs My Life
She takes the idiosyncratic clack of my boots and twirls
it into stiletto pacing, accelerates my life from setback
to sparkle and back again, frames every movement
as choreography. I spin from bedroom to foyer,
glide down the corridor as the camera pans. I am one
smooth take. No more jeans and a nice top reliance,
Amy always puts me together, spruced as I float down a stairway
from nowhere, marvelous in set-curl-to-toe-point fuchsia. Always
except for when she dishevels me, throws me pit stains
and mustard, bloating and rage, squeezes the Upper West Side in
and out of me as if aerobicizing a muscle named reinvention.
She is merciless with heartbreak and shame, but calls them
opportunity, calls them catalyst, calls them material.
She has no patience for my decision cowardice, chooses
children, but minimizes compromises, does not let them trip me
on the way to where she is taking me. Because, oh yes,
she is taking me somewhere. She is making me brave.
We are forging my tight ten, scripting my improvisation
and improvising my script, so that the words out of my mouth
are as crisp and disarming as the lips around them.
When she is done with me, I’ll have the fairest, fiercest, fastest
tongue you’ll have ever heard, and I’ll be striding to the stage – tits up.
She takes the idiosyncratic clack of my boots and twirls
it into stiletto pacing, accelerates my life from setback
to sparkle and back again, frames every movement
as choreography. I spin from bedroom to foyer,
glide down the corridor as the camera pans. I am one
smooth take. No more jeans and a nice top reliance,
Amy always puts me together, spruced as I float down a stairway
from nowhere, marvelous in set-curl-to-toe-point fuchsia. Always
except for when she dishevels me, throws me pit stains
and mustard, bloating and rage, squeezes the Upper West Side in
and out of me as if aerobicizing a muscle named reinvention.
She is merciless with heartbreak and shame, but calls them
opportunity, calls them catalyst, calls them material.
She has no patience for my decision cowardice, chooses
children, but minimizes compromises, does not let them trip me
on the way to where she is taking me. Because, oh yes,
she is taking me somewhere. She is making me brave.
We are forging my tight ten, scripting my improvisation
and improvising my script, so that the words out of my mouth
are as crisp and disarming as the lips around them.
When she is done with me, I’ll have the fairest, fiercest, fastest
tongue you’ll have ever heard, and I’ll be striding to the stage – tits up.
Suyin Du Bois (she/her) is a poet and tech start-up consultant of mixed Chinese-Malaysian and Belgian heritage, living in London. She studied for her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. Find her on Instagram @suyin.du.bois