Now that the world has ended
you ask me where your coffee is.
I comb shards of glass from my perfect hair
smooth my apron with its bloody handprints
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.
I buy strawberry shortcake popsicles.
Ten of them, but they only last two nights.
I think about how I could have been born during slavery.
Or in 2050, when there’s no ozone.
If I have an urge to cry, I don’t.
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.
We are pretty –
Pretty pictures
Pushed to the side
Walking on glass
I refuse to obey the haunting words sinking into my skin
I love the way my thighs rub together while I walk the streets of Brooklyn
The way the love shows on these lumps
Shoulders strong enough to carry dreams
I was raised to be still
to be silent
to play small
to be anything but what I am.
Until the day I began to raise myself
The Good Guy in the Sky
handing out love like pardons
But how can you gift me
something I already own?
the man tells me
i am his favorite place
to come
and pray.
I am not free until
I am not triggered
I am not free until
I can see that this is my courage
ou were told that you don't have power.
But that's like telling a mountain it can't move.
You and I both know that before any human on earth was born,
something mighty moved to make that mountain.
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I write for the woman who swallows the small blue pill
who smiles outwardly, yet inside wars a battle that no one can see ..
your words are bare and intimate
when they come through
do not clothe them..