I Have to Live by Aisha Sasha John

“I Have to Live” by Aisha Sasha John becomes universal from its personal perspective. Readers from virtually any background can relate to this revelation of mundanity. John leads us through daily musings, making them anew. She says her purpose in life is to help others honor their inner child. Through that innocence can come great insight, as perspective shifts from jaded to wondering and wandering. It shifts from cunningly self-deceptive to starkly honest.

In I decided I was a planet and I was a planet, John comes to terms with said self-deception.

It’s true I’ve suffered

The delusion

That I am unlamblike.

But oh my gosh that’s crazy (97).

The isolation of “The delusion” defines the term as a label. “The delusion” is not unique to the speaker, but rather part of human condition. She continues:

It doesn’t matter where I sit

And that I’m fucking crunchy

I have to be fibrous

So as not to be consumed (99).

We can understand “crunchy” as slang meant to describe someone that is environmentally conscious while also retaining its original sense’s connotations of rigidity. In this frame, John is expressing a resilience in self-preservation, as she is the planet meant to be protected. This also speaks to the wholeness created by the duality of being simultaneously “not unlamblike” and “crunchy”. The observations are playful and harsh in their honesty.

This self-oriented vision is present throughout the book, although it cannot be called selfish. One of the purposes of addressing the ego is to situate it within an environment. I sleep in a room addresses this concept of being situated, starting from the individual into the mass. In few words, the poem begins with her room and makes its way to an unnamed end of time.

I’m of a time.

It will know its name when

It is over.

When I am dead this time

Will be an object

And I

Will be an object

Too.

This passage situates the speaker as part of a greater scheme while also equating her to it. Since she will become “an object too”, she might earn a name once she is gone, like an era would. To be conscious of the self while it is still in existence becomes a constant act of self-definition, of self-love.

Both of these poem work with the collection's theme of being. They remind the reader of the self in relation to itself, the contradictions of which it might be comprised. It situates the self in reference to its environment, the context that might attribute meaning to said self. Regardless of what those elements might add up to, “I Have to Live”, affirms the validity of simply being, whatever that might mean.