Your name sounds like a conqueror's
You could conquer my entire body if you want to
Navigate from my mouth to my sex
Like Spain to the Incan Empire
Your tongue is a compass
Let your finger travel inside my hair
Like the thick of an Amazonian jungle
Leave me hot, drained like the Sahara
If it is my cunt you desire, Cortez,
Take me as a hostage
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Monday, July 13, 2015
White Blank Page
12 am and i am howling at the moon like it's going to save my soul
crescent moon
like your crooked smile
pressed against mine like in the way we kiss
the way your laughter tastes in my mouth
the way your eyes smile
the way you glow in the light of my bedroom
i let you into my Life like a metal spoon in my mouth
full of food for my small body
not understanding you would maybe nourish me
and biting on silver against my little teeth
you are red apples' skin in my teeth
you taught me how to feel hunger when you left
you always told me to eat and never understood how i could swallow you whole and still never be full
told you tonight you make me feel so small
you make me feel as little as a seashell inside the great, wide ocean
you pull me back with the tide and let me crash on rocks
you kissed my forehead like my brother
i never knew i could let a stranger in and never let him leave
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Sweet Tooth
he brought me a third of a red Twizzler he bit off
handed it to me like he was presenting it to me, still chewing on the other halves
but i marveled at the way his hands look in a still, resting way
the way they press to his chin
the way they make him look like he is made of marble
panicked
said, "what?"
couldn't look him in the face
took the red vines in a slow hesitation
and as i did he walked away without looking at me and said, "have a nice day"
i put the candy in my mouth
bit down
i imagine how it tastes in his mouth
i imagine kissing him slow
lips first
pressed together
the way he and i are skin to skin some nights and i still want to pull him closer
i bite the candy and imagine it's how his bottom lip feels tucked between my teeth
i let my saliva pool around my tongue and tremble when i think of his tongue caressing mine
coated in sweet and warm like rain in August
i eat the rest of the candy as slowly as i can stand it
i finish it in the way we kiss
slowly first
then hungry and anxious
the sweetness melts around my tongue
and i have never been this hungry
handed it to me like he was presenting it to me, still chewing on the other halves
but i marveled at the way his hands look in a still, resting way
the way they press to his chin
the way they make him look like he is made of marble
panicked
said, "what?"
couldn't look him in the face
took the red vines in a slow hesitation
and as i did he walked away without looking at me and said, "have a nice day"
i put the candy in my mouth
bit down
i imagine how it tastes in his mouth
i imagine kissing him slow
lips first
pressed together
the way he and i are skin to skin some nights and i still want to pull him closer
i bite the candy and imagine it's how his bottom lip feels tucked between my teeth
i let my saliva pool around my tongue and tremble when i think of his tongue caressing mine
coated in sweet and warm like rain in August
i eat the rest of the candy as slowly as i can stand it
i finish it in the way we kiss
slowly first
then hungry and anxious
the sweetness melts around my tongue
and i have never been this hungry
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Habits
I have an accidental habit of collecting books I've never read and leaving them unread on my bookshelf. I have an accidental habit of collecting boys who always want to kiss me on the mouth and never want to call me their girlfriend.
When Winter comes and my step mom asks me what I want for Christmas this year, I'm going to give her another list of books I'll never read. When February comes, I'll spend another Valentine's Day on my own and feel really sad when I see babies at the grocery store.
When Winter comes and my step mom asks me what I want for Christmas this year, I'm going to give her another list of books I'll never read. When February comes, I'll spend another Valentine's Day on my own and feel really sad when I see babies at the grocery store.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Brother
Brother,
Oh, my God, how you steal my features,
Encapsulate them inside your hands,
Long and slender fingers, like mine,
Silver wedding band on your ring finger.
I want to play Connect the Dots with the sun spots on your shoulders.
I want to sit in the cornucopia of your ear.
I want to sit with you,
3am at the kitchen table,
Cigarette smoldering between your long, slender fingers,
Tell me everything you know about being twenty- one.
Here is the World as I see it now.
There is no fair.
My body has been tired since I was a child.
Brother,
First boy I ever loved.
First boy who ever stood up for me.
On most days, the only boy who stood up for me.
Brother, this World has not been good to me.
You always said there would be struggle,
But
Are my eyes
Supposed to be this dark?
Brother,
I think I am too young to feel so tired.
Oh, my God, how you steal my features,
Encapsulate them inside your hands,
Long and slender fingers, like mine,
Silver wedding band on your ring finger.
I want to play Connect the Dots with the sun spots on your shoulders.
I want to sit in the cornucopia of your ear.
I want to sit with you,
3am at the kitchen table,
Cigarette smoldering between your long, slender fingers,
Tell me everything you know about being twenty- one.
Here is the World as I see it now.
There is no fair.
My body has been tired since I was a child.
Brother,
First boy I ever loved.
First boy who ever stood up for me.
On most days, the only boy who stood up for me.
Brother, this World has not been good to me.
You always said there would be struggle,
But
Are my eyes
Supposed to be this dark?
Brother,
I think I am too young to feel so tired.
Self- Immolation
4:36am
I wrote a poem about you I titled "Fire"
It has been two weeks today
I am still burning
And I do this to myself, you know.
You know how I always throw such a fit when I don't get what I want
So I have taken up self- immolation
What happens to people who self- immolate
Is they set themselves on fire
And they sit
And wait
The first twenty minutes are excruciating.
Flesh burns away
Nerve endings, exposed, ablaze and raging
You can literally feel your skin melting off your body
The essence
Is time.
After all the skin and nerves are burned away
You don't feel anything.
Your entire body is in flames
But you can't feel it.
It has been two weeks.
I am still waiting for the stillness.
I wrote a poem about you I titled "Fire"
It has been two weeks today
I am still burning
And I do this to myself, you know.
You know how I always throw such a fit when I don't get what I want
So I have taken up self- immolation
What happens to people who self- immolate
Is they set themselves on fire
And they sit
And wait
The first twenty minutes are excruciating.
Flesh burns away
Nerve endings, exposed, ablaze and raging
You can literally feel your skin melting off your body
The essence
Is time.
After all the skin and nerves are burned away
You don't feel anything.
Your entire body is in flames
But you can't feel it.
It has been two weeks.
I am still waiting for the stillness.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sleep Paralysis
An entire playlist of songs
Songs for us to make love to
Songs for us to fall asleep to
Every song was a lullaby
Of when you were mine
This is why I have insomnia now
Songs for us to make love to
Songs for us to fall asleep to
Every song was a lullaby
Of when you were mine
This is why I have insomnia now
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Fire
I know a boy who was so hot, he burned a hole through my chest.
Some people are pillars of flame that burn everything they touch.
Some people are made of ash and fall apart when you touch them.
Every boy who broke me was both.
I am learning that the reason we call people "hot"
Has less to do with the way their body shines in the Sun
Or the way our capillaries fluctuate
Instead, it has more to do with how we meet people
Who make us sweat
And burn all our clothes off
And leave us as ashes
Some people are pillars of flame that burn everything they touch.
Some people are made of ash and fall apart when you touch them.
Every boy who broke me was both.
I am learning that the reason we call people "hot"
Has less to do with the way their body shines in the Sun
Or the way our capillaries fluctuate
Instead, it has more to do with how we meet people
Who make us sweat
And burn all our clothes off
And leave us as ashes
Sunday, August 10, 2014
For Black Men (An Elegy For Mike Brown)
17 year old black boy named Mike Brown, who was supposed to start college tomorrow, was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri by police while jaywalking. He was unarmed. He was shot 9 times.
Initial media reports claimed that an 18 year old black man had been shot and killed while fleeing police after shoplifting.
People in the neighborhood, including members of Mike Brown’s family, came out of their homes and began to protest, shouting “no justice, no peace,” and keeping their hands in the air.
Media reports claimed that a violent mob quickly formed around the shooting location shouting “kill the police."
Ferguson police have dogs and shotguns
The unarmed crowd is raising their hands
The unarmed crowd is the neighborhood Mark Brown grew up in
His family
His friends
All gather in the streets
NO JUSTICE
NO PEACE
Rhythmatic to German Sheppard police dog barking
White foam from their snouts
Meanwhile,
The media reports,
"Black man steals from store,
Shot down by police."
What the media didn't tell you
Was that Mike Brown was supposed to start college today
What the media told you
Is what you saw in the morning
Black coffee in your coffee mug
Before you got in your car and went to work
Your Life goes on
Your children are safe on the streets
Meanwhile,
Mike Brown's family is screaming
NO JUSTICE
NO PEACE
And the media tells you they're screaming
KILL THE POLICE
Meanwhile,
Calvin Bryant stands with children
Displaying signs saying
#I CAN'T BREATHE
Because Bryant's friend, Eric Garnder
Was choked to death on the streets
By New York City police
While people in the street pulled out their phones to record the incident
Crowds of people
Gathered around a man screaming
I CAN'T BREATHE
Meanwhile,
LeCree Johnson
Is at home with John Crawford's children
After police shot down John Crawford
Because he was holding a toy gun
LeCree was on the phone with John when she heard him scream
IT'S NOT A REAL GUN
Do you remember when White people were bringing their assault riffles into Target?
Mike Brown had his hands in the air
(As if he had anything to surrender)
When he was shot nine times by cops
Nine bulletholes in a seventeen- year- old boy
(But the media will tell you he was eighteen)
If a Black man puts a bullet in a cop
The whole World hears it
If a White man puts a bullet in an unarmed Black man
Does it make a sound?
If a White man
Spits the word "nigger"
Does it make a sound?
If you put nine bullets in a boy
Whose skin is the colour of they way you drink your coffee
At 9am,
Good Morning America
What sound does he make?
Meanwhile,
Black community in the streets,
NO JUSTICE
NO PEACE
White police men
White foam at their mouth
Black hands in the air
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE
Monday, July 14, 2014
Letter To Myself At Age Twenty
At age six,
you were chubby- cheeked and full of love.
Boys thought you were cute.
Your best friend,
A chubby Mexican girl
Who liked every single snack you brought in Kindergarten.
You wore glasses
Had a crossbite
Pawpaw Dan called you "Honeysuckle."
At age twelve,
the boys who used to like you called you "ugly."
You were the smallest girl in your class.
You had long, brown hair,
High cheekbones
Full, defined lips.
Self- esteem the size of a ladybug.
At age thirteen,
all the girls in your class were developing breasts.
Your mother shamed you for your skin,
Growing acne,
Blooming on your face like poppies in the fields of Iran.
You wore two bras everyday to school.
You thought you were fat because of a joke your brother made,
Etching into your brain,
Because you loved and trusted him,
You didn't believe he would ever lie to you.
You found out he had been lying the night you undressed in front of your mirror.
You turned your torso,
Your spine, overexposed,
Sticking out like it would jump out of your body at any moment.
You cried yourself to sleep that night.
You were crying yourself to sleep a lot around this time,
But you weren't so sure why.
At age fourteen,
you were short- hair,
Black eyeliner,
Combat boots,
Ripped jeans,
Bands who screamed what they wanted to say,
And a Punk attitude,
Before you even knew what a Punk was.
Your earliest metanoia.
Sneaking out of your bedroom window.
Kissing Tiffany in the girls' bathroom at gym.
Getting high with Brittany on the weekends.
Early Feminist in a little girl's body.
But, Kid,
You didn't know shit.
At age sixteen,
a boy you liked kissed you for the first time.
Holding hands in his truck.
Smoking weed at his best friend's house through tinfoil.
When he took your virginity,
It took you a almost a year after he broke up with you to admit
You never said "yes" to him.
At age seventeen,
you were in love with a boy with blue eyes and long hair.
After the first time he called you a "bitch,"
You understood how bad your self- worth was.
And you stayed,
Because you didn't think you deserved better.
At age nineteen,
you broke up with that boy with the long hair
And the sharp tongue.
After having it drilled into your head that you weren't worthy of love
Or confidence,
You started accepting it, from anyone who would offer it to you.
You didn't care about names.
They say there's something that happens to people who get hurt.
Something crazy in them.
You started sleeping around.
It started with a drunken mistake.
You didn't tell him "yes," either.
More and more after that,
Because you knew what happens when you said "no."
Not long after that,
You tried to take your Life.
You opened the skin on your arms
On the bathroom floor of the apartment you lived in with your two best friends.
There is something surreal and awful about hearing your best friend screaming your name in panic.
At age twenty,
you've kicked a hell of a lot of people out of your Life.
You don't look boys in the face.
You walk like thunder.
Your tongue knows kindness
And it knows malice,
And it knows that using the latter doesn't make progress.
You're learning that "beautiful"
Doesn't need to be seen.
You do not need it from a boy's mouth.
You don't need it texted it to you at 2am from a belly full of booze.
It will come from you.
You are consistently evolving.
There is no permanence in your twenties.
Beauty can shine on your arms.
You can wear it on your sleeve.
You can see it on the horizon at Bellah Mine, where your friends take you swimming.
You can see it when your cousin, Ember, laughs from her belly,
Because she's come so far, and she is so much stronger than she knows.
Your mother did not birth you into this World like stars colliding in our Universe,
So you could hate and destroy yourself.
Because if you never learn how you are beautiful,
How is everyone else going to see it?
you were chubby- cheeked and full of love.
Boys thought you were cute.
Your best friend,
A chubby Mexican girl
Who liked every single snack you brought in Kindergarten.
You wore glasses
Had a crossbite
Pawpaw Dan called you "Honeysuckle."
At age twelve,
the boys who used to like you called you "ugly."
You were the smallest girl in your class.
You had long, brown hair,
High cheekbones
Full, defined lips.
Self- esteem the size of a ladybug.
At age thirteen,
all the girls in your class were developing breasts.
Your mother shamed you for your skin,
Growing acne,
Blooming on your face like poppies in the fields of Iran.
You wore two bras everyday to school.
You thought you were fat because of a joke your brother made,
Etching into your brain,
Because you loved and trusted him,
You didn't believe he would ever lie to you.
You found out he had been lying the night you undressed in front of your mirror.
You turned your torso,
Your spine, overexposed,
Sticking out like it would jump out of your body at any moment.
You cried yourself to sleep that night.
You were crying yourself to sleep a lot around this time,
But you weren't so sure why.
At age fourteen,
you were short- hair,
Black eyeliner,
Combat boots,
Ripped jeans,
Bands who screamed what they wanted to say,
And a Punk attitude,
Before you even knew what a Punk was.
Your earliest metanoia.
Sneaking out of your bedroom window.
Kissing Tiffany in the girls' bathroom at gym.
Getting high with Brittany on the weekends.
Early Feminist in a little girl's body.
But, Kid,
You didn't know shit.
At age sixteen,
a boy you liked kissed you for the first time.
Holding hands in his truck.
Smoking weed at his best friend's house through tinfoil.
When he took your virginity,
It took you a almost a year after he broke up with you to admit
You never said "yes" to him.
At age seventeen,
you were in love with a boy with blue eyes and long hair.
After the first time he called you a "bitch,"
You understood how bad your self- worth was.
And you stayed,
Because you didn't think you deserved better.
At age nineteen,
you broke up with that boy with the long hair
And the sharp tongue.
After having it drilled into your head that you weren't worthy of love
Or confidence,
You started accepting it, from anyone who would offer it to you.
You didn't care about names.
They say there's something that happens to people who get hurt.
Something crazy in them.
You started sleeping around.
It started with a drunken mistake.
You didn't tell him "yes," either.
More and more after that,
Because you knew what happens when you said "no."
Not long after that,
You tried to take your Life.
You opened the skin on your arms
On the bathroom floor of the apartment you lived in with your two best friends.
There is something surreal and awful about hearing your best friend screaming your name in panic.
At age twenty,
you've kicked a hell of a lot of people out of your Life.
You don't look boys in the face.
You walk like thunder.
Your tongue knows kindness
And it knows malice,
And it knows that using the latter doesn't make progress.
You're learning that "beautiful"
Doesn't need to be seen.
You do not need it from a boy's mouth.
You don't need it texted it to you at 2am from a belly full of booze.
It will come from you.
You are consistently evolving.
There is no permanence in your twenties.
Beauty can shine on your arms.
You can wear it on your sleeve.
You can see it on the horizon at Bellah Mine, where your friends take you swimming.
You can see it when your cousin, Ember, laughs from her belly,
Because she's come so far, and she is so much stronger than she knows.
Your mother did not birth you into this World like stars colliding in our Universe,
So you could hate and destroy yourself.
Because if you never learn how you are beautiful,
How is everyone else going to see it?
Sunday, June 29, 2014
All I Loved, I Loved Alone
There are going to be days when people tell you that you look exhausted and rocky- eyed.
Look them in the face. Tell them, "This is how I'm supposed to look today."
Forget the word "trigger."
Flashbacks will have no triggers.
There will be times when the flashbacks hit you like a coastal hurricane,
When you're standing behind the counter at work,
With the customer patiently waiting for his change,
And all you will be able to do is stand there, not knowing what to do with your hands.
There will be times you will want to call.
Don't do it.
Because the sound of his phone going to Voicemail
Will be twice as painful as hearing his voice.
There will be days you won't be able to do anything but howl and claw and fall apart.
Do it.
Let your face become a river of choke and snot and stinging, hot tears.
There will be days you won't be able to do anything at all.
Do it.
Call in for work. Close the blinds. Hide in the covers.
There will be a time when "stay" will be the most Heart- breaking thing you will ever hear.
Look them in the face. Tell them, "This is how I'm supposed to look today."
Forget the word "trigger."
Flashbacks will have no triggers.
There will be times when the flashbacks hit you like a coastal hurricane,
When you're standing behind the counter at work,
With the customer patiently waiting for his change,
And all you will be able to do is stand there, not knowing what to do with your hands.
There will be times you will want to call.
Don't do it.
Because the sound of his phone going to Voicemail
Will be twice as painful as hearing his voice.
There will be days you won't be able to do anything but howl and claw and fall apart.
Do it.
Let your face become a river of choke and snot and stinging, hot tears.
There will be days you won't be able to do anything at all.
Do it.
Call in for work. Close the blinds. Hide in the covers.
There will be a time when "stay" will be the most Heart- breaking thing you will ever hear.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Text For Last Night
I'm a stupid woman, and you love me, so you're a stupid man. And I've howled at the Moon so much, my lungs are sore and raw, and I'm coughing up blood like raspberries all over my porcelain skin, where you've laid your hand your head your face, traced all over me. And your kiss feels like home, and I'm so fucking homesick. And now that I've thrown my stupid body against the wall so much, I can see, now, that I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at me for letting you slip from my tiny fingers and into the arms of somebody else. I'm not angry at you for trying to fix what I shattered like my car on a foggy morning on the road you and I traveled endlessly on nights like this one. I'm angry at me. I'm fucking pissed at myself because you aren't mine. And you never will be. I don't believe you ever were, but that's alright. I have kicked and screamed and cursed you away so many times and begged my forgiveness back into your Heart a thousand fucking times. And here I am again. I hope you meant it last night when you said you were done with me. I hope you read every word of this and delete them immediately and go to bed, without a word to me. I hope you have plans to see somebody pretty. I hope she kisses you with a mouth that was softer than mine. I hope you fall in love with her like you love the Winter. I hope she holds you late at night and buries your bruises in her skin and you never hurt yourself ever again. Because it's all what you deserve. I'm not bitter. I'm broken, Baby. I was never whole, and I never will be. But, goddamn, you made me feel like I was pretty close to it. I never meant it when I said I hoped my exes the best in Life. I mean it right now. You deserve it. Goodnight. I'm sorry.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Song For The Wounded
You were the best thing and the worst thing in my Life, my Dear.
The light has gone out.
And soon, maybe you will, too.
The light has gone out.
And soon, maybe you will, too.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
I Miss You
10:05 pm
I can't quit shaking
You are someplace nice without me
And I am alone, waiting for a boy to take me out to the lake
But I just want to be with you
But you are miles away
And I cannot stop the shaking
And the Lexapro isn't working for me
And I can't quit biting my tongue in my sleep
And I'd kill just to watch you sleeping tonight
And I can't erase your face in my head
And you are still tangled in my hair
And somebody is making you laugh, and I can't hear it
And I am sleeping too much
And I don't have anything to look forward to anymore
And somebody will marry you, and it won't be me
And I have no idea how to cope when it's late at night
And I can't stop shaking
And I'm breaking
Come back to me
Please, stay.
I can't quit shaking
You are someplace nice without me
And I am alone, waiting for a boy to take me out to the lake
But I just want to be with you
But you are miles away
And I cannot stop the shaking
And the Lexapro isn't working for me
And I can't quit biting my tongue in my sleep
And I'd kill just to watch you sleeping tonight
And I can't erase your face in my head
And you are still tangled in my hair
And somebody is making you laugh, and I can't hear it
And I am sleeping too much
And I don't have anything to look forward to anymore
And somebody will marry you, and it won't be me
And I have no idea how to cope when it's late at night
And I can't stop shaking
And I'm breaking
Come back to me
Please, stay.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
I Do Not Need To Waste A Fucking Title On You
I am broken glass
I am shattered porcelain and beer bottles I emptied into my belly
On every night like this
Loving me is wading through a beach littered with my broken parts
Because everyone that broke me never wanted to clean up their mess they made
I am moldy laundry and stink in my clothes
I am staying in bed for days
I am purging what I ate, because I do not love me enough to feel full
I am so angry, my whole body shakes
I am hating you so much that I want to tear out of my own skin for every time I think of you
I am Hiroshima
I am boiling
My blood is boiling in me
I am a time bomb
I am a hurricane
I am phlegm and blood coming out of my throat
I am a fucking wasp
I am losing my shit
I am losing my mind
I am losing
I am losing it
I am losing you
I am losing it
I am done.
I am shattered porcelain and beer bottles I emptied into my belly
On every night like this
Loving me is wading through a beach littered with my broken parts
Because everyone that broke me never wanted to clean up their mess they made
I am moldy laundry and stink in my clothes
I am staying in bed for days
I am purging what I ate, because I do not love me enough to feel full
I am so angry, my whole body shakes
I am hating you so much that I want to tear out of my own skin for every time I think of you
I am Hiroshima
I am boiling
My blood is boiling in me
I am a time bomb
I am a hurricane
I am phlegm and blood coming out of my throat
I am a fucking wasp
I am losing my shit
I am losing my mind
I am losing
I am losing it
I am losing you
I am losing it
I am done.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Open Letter To My Boss
Please, do not yell at me.
I know I didn't do my job right this time,
Just like last time.
I know, I'm not cut out for this job.
Please, do not yell at me.
I work tirelessly
For five nights a week
Until my bones are weak and
My muscles fight in protest.
I go home when the Sun is rising
With my body defeated.
I work with all kinds of people.
With mommas, trying to feed their babies,
With convicts and criminals
With old men and baby- faced men
With immigrants who don't speak a lick of English
With a woman with a Bachelor's degree in business
With people who I have never heard speak
With people whose laugh I recognize from across the factory
With liars
With Christians
With Atheists
With brothers
With sisters
With Choctaws
With people whose language I cannot even recognize
I do not know what it is to reap the benefits of arduous labour.
I am not a rolled- up sleeve working- class hero.
I am a writer.
I cannot take apart a machine and put it back together.
But I can take apart e.e. cummings' work and figure out what he meant.
I cannot back a million- dollar industry with my hands,
But I can write a soliloquy made of no complete sentences
And make a million people relate to it.
I am not made of elbow- grease and the sweat of my brow.
I am made of staying up all night just to write poetry.
I am not made of oil- stained hands or black grit under my nails.
I am made of ink stains on my hands and smudges on paper.
I am made of 4am Spoken Words
Made of writing poems in the dark about my lover while he's sleeping
Made of haikus
Made of coffee stains on the poem I wrote about it
Made of a thousand words on any situation
Made of seventeen syllables on my worst days
Made of The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword
Made of collections by Plath
Made of crying at anything by Jeanann Verlee
I do not know what it is to take pride in my job,
But I know exactly what it is to take pride in my work. -xx
I know I didn't do my job right this time,
Just like last time.
I know, I'm not cut out for this job.
Please, do not yell at me.
I work tirelessly
For five nights a week
Until my bones are weak and
My muscles fight in protest.
I go home when the Sun is rising
With my body defeated.
I work with all kinds of people.
With mommas, trying to feed their babies,
With convicts and criminals
With old men and baby- faced men
With immigrants who don't speak a lick of English
With a woman with a Bachelor's degree in business
With people who I have never heard speak
With people whose laugh I recognize from across the factory
With liars
With Christians
With Atheists
With brothers
With sisters
With Choctaws
With people whose language I cannot even recognize
I do not know what it is to reap the benefits of arduous labour.
I am not a rolled- up sleeve working- class hero.
I am a writer.
I cannot take apart a machine and put it back together.
But I can take apart e.e. cummings' work and figure out what he meant.
I cannot back a million- dollar industry with my hands,
But I can write a soliloquy made of no complete sentences
And make a million people relate to it.
I am not made of elbow- grease and the sweat of my brow.
I am made of staying up all night just to write poetry.
I am not made of oil- stained hands or black grit under my nails.
I am made of ink stains on my hands and smudges on paper.
I am made of 4am Spoken Words
Made of writing poems in the dark about my lover while he's sleeping
Made of haikus
Made of coffee stains on the poem I wrote about it
Made of a thousand words on any situation
Made of seventeen syllables on my worst days
Made of The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword
Made of collections by Plath
Made of crying at anything by Jeanann Verlee
I do not know what it is to take pride in my job,
But I know exactly what it is to take pride in my work. -xx
Saturday, November 16, 2013
November
This time, last year,
I cut my hair very short
after wearing it long.
It was down to the middle of my back,
but on my nineteenth birthday,
I became very depressed
and cut it into a short boy- style.
I took my cut- off hair,
and threw it outside,
off the porch of the house I shared with my two friends.
My best friend at the time,
a sweet Choctaw boy from McCurtain County
said I shouldn't have thrown the hair outside,
because Choctaw legend says cut hair left outside,
will attract bad spirits to find me
and give me bad luck.
You came into my Life about the time I cut my hair
This time, last year, with my hair cut short,
and my foolish Heart on my sleeve.
I cut my hair very short
after wearing it long.
It was down to the middle of my back,
but on my nineteenth birthday,
I became very depressed
and cut it into a short boy- style.
I took my cut- off hair,
and threw it outside,
off the porch of the house I shared with my two friends.
My best friend at the time,
a sweet Choctaw boy from McCurtain County
said I shouldn't have thrown the hair outside,
because Choctaw legend says cut hair left outside,
will attract bad spirits to find me
and give me bad luck.
You came into my Life about the time I cut my hair
This time, last year, with my hair cut short,
and my foolish Heart on my sleeve.
I Exist
But I'm not completely there
Like the entity of blackness inside and empty tree- without concreteness
I am the hollow blackness
Like the entity of blackness inside and empty tree- without concreteness
I am the hollow blackness
Monday, November 11, 2013
My Definition of Love
Fall is rolling in, and I am reminded, again, that I am damned to end up with a man like my father.
A man, cold to the touch, with a soft mouth and blunt words.
His body would be solid and warm and calloused.
His body is train tracks that lead to me.
He will strike me with his meanness,
and I will stay.
Because my definition of love is learning to keep still when he yells at you.
Don't move a muscle.
Don't flinch.
You made this happen.
Don't ever fall in love with a man with beautiful eyes.
They're going to see right through you.
My definition of love is constantly searching- striving to be enough.
Always competing with the ex.
Always competing with the pretty girl with beautiful hair.
My definition of love is feeling perfect when he says "You're beautiful."
It is disregarding that look he gave the girl in skinny jeans at the store,
because right now- right in this moment-
he thinks you're beautiful.
My definition of love is stripping for him when he asks you to.
You both got into a fight because he refused to talk to you, but you're a good girlfriend, so you take off your clothes for him.
My definition of love is disregarding your feelings to make his okay.
It is hours of being on the phone, screaming internally I'M NOT OKAY, but keeping quiet, as he tells you I DON'T WANT TO TALK.
My definition of love is wanting to swallow your mother's sleeping pills after the fight you lost because you couldn't leave him.
And then waking up in the morning to his sweet, calloused hands cupping your face.
You were made for this.
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