"I'll never drive on that road again," she said,
as if it was the road who killed him
with her tempting curves
and shimmery guardrail waistband.
I asked to keep
the lights off—
and in the pitch black
you pulled me in
This river is a living thing, ice in chunks moving toward me, pulling me into
its mutable monotony--always becoming what it was without ever being the same.
My first cry was heard
by the Fronds that fanned my mother
The sun painted my skin–
The color it should be.
Where do I need to be?
I'm longing
Calls of direction
I cannot hear
Why is it wrong
To “take it to heart”
My heart is all I have
All that lives when I die
Tonight I’m neither girl nor woman
I am simply clay.
I surrender before my potter
As May does to the sun
I dust off the bruises
On my knees,
because after all I did fall.
A story rattles
loudly in my backpack,
One.
Don’t wear that outfit.
If you wear eye liner that’s too thick
Or a skirt that’s too short,
Then you are asking for trouble.
relieved not to be four-years-old
again learning I am not the center
everything constantly spiraling
hourly coping with roller coaster
emotions, up and down seesaw
If you are a female firstborn,
your ears are pierced at birth,
though earrings may be taken away
at five, when you walk on your father
make out with your mother’s cousin.
There between your stubbled chin
& the shoulder pocked by adolescence
is my place, my hollow;
where muscle & sinew meet
my body has been my body before i was allowed to paint my nails /
or wear makeup / or shave my small tan legs in mom’s clean white tub /
as i giggled and hugged myself / because this is what big girls did
We are pretty –
Pretty pictures
Pushed to the side
Walking on glass
melanin,
brown and black
a yearning for
alabaster.