I sit in place,
criss-crossed and chained
to galaxies
with better days.
All in Poetry
I sit in place,
criss-crossed and chained
to galaxies
with better days.
It has no words but demands
A name
Say it soft
She’d scoff and say “You’re not like me”
butterfly earrings swinging, as she says this
Like her tattoo, the paint is faded and chipped
I stretched my arms out
in hesitant exploration.
On my knees, bent
at the waist, I prayed
I would not be the one
to find the body.
You and I
have prayed for change
To be loved for who we are
To be seen in truth
To be caught as we fall
We fell together
The way one sinks into a couch
During an anime marathon
we sat three feet apart
Whispered thoughts, My eyes strained
to memorize the glow of her eyes in the dark
In the same breath she tells me that she is
the more stable of us in our relationship`.
because she doesn’t linger too long
on her issues-Doesn’t bleed
onto others
We had a pickle on the river,
and we left our kids
in the parking lot.
They wish to repossess me
like I wasn’t demon first -
finding my way back through my ancestors, my coven, my guides.
i pause my song to bid new friends earlier made farewell
they depart, i press play, the crescendo starts to climb
all aboard, we leave, and we find night has taken the helm
There is a parcel of land where everything is true
in reverse. Ribbon-cutting ceremony into the Mayor’s
grave plot, where Nana Ida is a shopper putting on her lipstick,
shade 53, Maui in the Moonlight--Setting sail after the war
Wanting control
direct this dissonance of life
laying lifeless in the death of ego I know.
In my dreams, I am leaping off
a star and then I’m a starfish sparkling in a turquoise sea—
a celestial cleansing for a woman
who just wanted to have sex most of the time.
I am praised, I am not chastised for wasting my flames
like those lazy liars in the green or the blue. When
my shoulder hurts, I strike a match and a trainer appears
to tell me orange will loosen it.
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/
Under a stairwell, I could feel my fear
like skin caught in a zipper. The last touch
of red on the artist’s brush. I heard many cries,
like scrawny cats in the alley of my heart.
My sternum whistles,
My heart booms and says
I’m still here,
Open and ready for you
The air gets wrenched out of my
voice box
Still -
I amplify it, sharpen each blade
I wield every unfinished scream like
throwing stars
to which article do I append
the eulogy delivered at the funeral of a woman who lived
allergy-eyed on a riding lawnmower,
full speed
Before he went south, she said Get down
on your knees and beg for forgiveness.He did not. He had nothing to beg for.
He did nothing wrong, said nothing wrong,
but they believed this white bitch when she said he whistled.