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.
it’s hard to talk to mama sometimes
we both hold the pain
like a pretty cupcake
but with nasty icing
Why is it wrong
To “take it to heart”
My heart is all I have
All that lives when I die
I dust off the bruises
On my knees,
because after all I did fall.
A story rattles
loudly in my backpack,
You sit in moms bed and yell for her to come and get you with a smile on your face / I guess you didn’t care about being scared to ask for what you wanted / You never even asked, i don’t think / you always screamed /
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post-shower mirror glance
shows someone else’s stomach
stretch out my hand
shocked that it’s me—
deep plum lines streaking
silly-nilly up, making my belly button
parenthetical, have gone silent
When I asked my dad if I could interview him about prison
we were on the couch in pajamas watching Law and Order: SVU
Staring at my body in the mirror is like waiting looking for answers from a dead man. The dead cannot speak, and my body cannot repair the brokenness inside me.
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“It looks nicer straight,” they said to me
with a grin on their face.
Because God had blessed us
With the rarity
That is the lack of humidity
On a Florida summer day.
I am getting better -
at waiting to be back, until
I can once
a g a i n
Call this body, my home.
The eight-legged spider mocks me
with all eight of its eyes,
And descends from its corner of the ceiling.
Today, I dressed you in cotton,
softer than the wool sweater I wore
until the seven-year winter in me ended.
I am not the substance of that enemy
I am not what happened to me
I am what I am what I am
And I am me