Make them whisper to each other, ‘just who is that new girl?’ Turn their knowing eyes into awescapes like children eating their first bit of ____(your favorite childhood nostalgia treat goes here)____. I want to talk to our inner children the way we should’ve always been spoken to. our feelings given acres to run andContinue reading “I want to write a poem that makes my other poems shy.”
Category Archives: self love
Instructions Home, after Jasmine Mans.
Break every shame clogged mirror before you begin (that way you have already begun). Turn left at the stoplight across from the small brick elementary school that proved to be reprieve from the kitchen table. Make a fire of the things you used to believe of yourself. 300 ft from where you ate pistachio iceContinue reading “Instructions Home, after Jasmine Mans.”
try
for receptiveintentionalwillinggivingresponsivegentletryto open upmaybecome upshortmaybelevel upstill wake upTry.
It is widely known that sunflowers bend towards the sun
it isn’t true but I wish it were, that when they can’t find it, they turn towards one another. As my friend bikes across the entire city so we can trade books and sit six feet apart, I’m sure humans do that exact thing. In a pandemic, there are still poetry readings and celebrations. InContinue reading “It is widely known that sunflowers bend towards the sun”
There is a certain kind of tired that only comes from arguing with your own body continuously
please open the jar don’t sit down yet just don’t call off again this week I am thirty-four and I have the hand strength of a fifty-three year old. I am thirty-four and age means nothing in the face of chronic illnesses. When my DNA was coded, my connective tissue was made too loose. NowContinue reading “There is a certain kind of tired that only comes from arguing with your own body continuously”
My shame is a mold that only grows in the parts of me I refuse to shed light on
refuse to talk about. I need a better flashlight a braver mouth a new dictionary to find fresh words to form familiar sounds in new ways. I write a lot of poems about growth but have you ever loved something so much you didn’t notice it never loved you back? sometimes, I’m so focused onContinue reading ” My shame is a mold that only grows in the parts of me I refuse to shed light on”
I write the wrong poem and it scores well
every season I compete with it. a few seasons in I write the one I finally mean on a subject previously too scared to touch Ironically about a time I was too scared to touch (and in both cases I didn’t speak up until) I touch stage, kill the poem the audience exactly the rightContinue reading “I write the wrong poem and it scores well”
I am not the handcuffs on my bed post,
nor what you assume they say about me. I am the steady voice that asks them to be used. not just IN control I am control even when I consensually give it away. I am a sovereign entity, allocating all this power exactly as I see fit, boundless even when bound I am safe. IContinue reading “I am not the handcuffs on my bed post,”
I. In my family it is an heirloom to stand in doorways with men and watch their going
to freeze in gridlock and wonder, “Should I revolt against this? Should I play this game of tug of warring elements? Is that form of protest worth the tsunami?” I am the one in the family who usually decides it is. As I watch my tight rope walker fall or jump or dive from theContinue reading “I. In my family it is an heirloom to stand in doorways with men and watch their going”
When I raise a son, his first language will be no
his second will be I don’t know, and his third will be silence, I will do so just to teach him how they are all synonyms, how they might as well mean the same thing because none of them mean consent. I will teach him yes is the only word that ever means yes, andContinue reading “When I raise a son, his first language will be no”
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