Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I ignore my chores/ like these emotions I don’t want to give a home to/
watch them pile up/ knowing eventually they will get done/
these piles/ looming over me
/ thoughts and memories looping/ and looping/ and looping/
I find someone else to blame/
for me not/
being more/
Boricua/
Haitian
knowing I need
to Florida Water my floors
make myself more Fabuloso
put on the right hymns for healing
pretend all is well within my pwópte (cleanliness)
Guilt and shame leads me to/ clean one room/
1 inch/ fold one thing/ no more stuffing them into a drawer.
I ignore all the echoes of how I am not a
Proper mujer/ fanm (woman)
Living in so much desastre (disaster) of myself.
Of getting overwhelmed in the
disinterest of
limpieza. (Cleanliness)
There’s a soul disconnect there.
Unclean empathy with fingerprint filled mirrors.
I rather help others organize their own homes/
closets/ mine bulges with bones/
act as if I don’t live here/ an un-visiting voisin(neighbor)
to this uncleanliness/ who put all of this here/
sweeping others front yards/ before I sweep my own/
isn’t it much easier/ to focus elsewhere/ detouring with blinded point of views.
I choose to attack them/ one by one/
feel like I’m accomplishing something
pero(but) I ignore sweeping everything
neatly into a dust pan/
letting it all accumulate/ creating traps for
myself to get caught into
Passing by them/ as if they do not exist/ it’s easier/
this way/ procrastinating/
ignoring how much space they take/
taking up space/ I move myself into a smaller corner /
wait for them to come suffocate me/ only then can I feel them properly/
coax me out/
maybe just maybe the Virgo in me will turn on/
instead, I take selfies/ doll myself up and call myself a soldier/
Lysz Flo is a, trilingual spoken word artist, author of fiction and poetry, member of The Estuary Collective, and podcast host of Creatively Exposed who released her poetry novel Soliloquy of an Ice Queen.