我宁愿深藏心底
我宁愿深藏心底
诗 / 梅丽莎·克劳
译 / 稻粱
我渴望着你，昨夜梦醒时。我的身体
如火车驶过的地面般震颤，或许还发出
火车长长的刺耳尖啸，就像野兽
加快脚步靠近，而那份欲望与恐惧，
我却宁愿深藏心底。曾经我越界犯下过失，
背负罪责，朋友好言宽慰，我并非
一贯的恶魔。黑夜中，这句安慰
如过电一般迅速击中我，震颤
我身体的每一个部位。十五岁那年，
我从祖母的梳妆台上偷走一条金项链，
送给了我的心上人，那抹闪亮装饰着
我所爱的颈脖——直到有一日它滑落，
沉入夏日湖泥，连同我那爱情一起丢失，
而我背负着偷盗的沉重羞愧，这秘密，
直至今日。我并未因此轻松一些。我不知道
未来我还会觊觎何物，尽管我清楚地记得
我身边一切被夺走的东西，比如清晨
从我房门溜出的小猫，到了下午
已在邻家小孩的臂弯中大打呼噜，
他大摇大摆地走在马路上，邀我
抚摸他的新宠。原谅邻家小孩并不难，
谁不曾渴望拥有一件不属于自己的温软之物？
谁不希望知晓唤归一个英俊面庞的甜蜜称呼？
总之，我并不孤单。我曾是那种
从一个心爱之人的颈间夺取金饰
去装扮另一人的恶魔。我也曾
努力藏起那驱动肉体的内心渴望，仿佛
唯有说出口的事情才会成真。而现在？
我只希望听到一句：我爱你。
原作
What I Wanted to Keep Private
by Melissa Crowe
I wanted you last night when I woke, my body
vibrating like train-shook ground, and might have
let out the train’s slow scream, the kind that quickens
as the beast draws near, but I wanted to keep
private that desire and that fear. Once I transgressed
but I’m not a permanent monster is a thing a friend said
to comfort me for some sin of my own, but in the dark
that phrase travels me like a pulse, shocking each
cloistered organ in turn. When I was fifteen, I took
a gold necklace from my grandmother’s dresser
and gave it to a sweetheart, bit of shimmer that graced
my favorite neck until it slipped off, sunk in the silt
of a summer lake, lost, and I lost the sweetheart, too,
but I carried the lead-weight shame of that theft, secret,
until now. I don’t feel any lighter. I don’t know what
I might yet steal, though I remember everything
stolen from me, like the kitten loosed from our house
in the morning and by afternoon purring in the arms
of a neighbor kid who swaggered up the driveway,
invited me to stroke his new cat. It’s not so hard
to forgive that boy. Who doesn’t sometimes want to hold
a soft thing not his own? Who doesn’t hope to know
the sugar name that calls the handsome stranger
home? Anyway, I’m not alone. Once I was the kind
of monster who takes the gold from one beloved throat
to trim another. And once I was the kind who hid
the hunger that drove my hand, as though only a said thing’s
made true. Now? I just want to be said. I love you.
# 作 者
梅丽莎·克劳（ Melissa Crowe ），美国当代女诗人，在北卡罗莱纳大学威尔明顿分校担任教职，教授诗歌与出版课程。著有诗集 Dear Terror, Dear Splendor （威斯康星大学出版社，2019年）和 Lo （爱荷华大学出版社，2023年），后者曾获爱荷华诗歌奖。
作者照片：The Rumpus，Melissa Crowe 提供
题图：Pexels
责任编辑：稻粱