Today I bring myself.
I bring forth form and substance
-weightiness-
I bring forth solidity
sometimes aching
sometimes free
but nonetheless a filler of the void.
Mama was always cooking up something,
and very rarely eating.
Which is why, I guess, I grew up thinking a woman’s work was:
providing for others,
and never really tending to herself.
heavy legs
sprout feet
that glide fretfully over narrow wood
I know this wait
Today,
I threw the ring you gave me
into the River.
What is it that happens
when the lungs cease to draw breath
and the heart ceases pumping blood
and the body rests?
Read More
The best looking of them all
Gets mistaken by the men
As willing to do whatever they may want.
Remember when it was brand new;
when we were brand new.
How we’d sacrifice moments of sleep,
for even the slightest extension of togetherness.
How everything was mystery and possibility,
and inside one another’s eyes was an oasis of hope.
Her hunger like a secret wanting oxygen, is hiding
as she crouches,
considering it wasteful to truly disappear, as others require her-
Curiosity nags her careful and considered breaths
and she hasn’t the ardor to say no to the children
so she seeks concealment.
I am certain this life is not an accident. I have this ache in my marrow that throbs when I question this existence.
Read MoreSometimes we stop trying.
We sit back, and let it come.
And I like this softer side of
effort, washing water over
stone, slow and powerful and
steady.
There is not just one thing
I can say that I am
My waters flow wildly
Uncontrolled by some dam
Take this pair of scissors
And carefully snip my seams apart
Remove the thread of these sutures
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I wonder if God, coolly watching from the stars,
sees me here
alone at my kitchen table, lit by my one yellow candle,
dim warmth on a green-black avocado, purple eggplants
and dusty potatoes crusted in dirt,
a lumpy smallish pile on the scarred table.
I watch you rip your body with a visceral rage, in the name of what? Attacking the very parts of yourself that will keep you alive. What is this body without a head? What is this pulpit without hands to praise or legs to lift?
Read MoreInnocent bystander
lying in a radiance of light
flickering fire feeds the desire
what i saw on my walk across campus
men walking.
women tugging. pulling. adjusting.