for
the arms
that hold me
my heart woke me crying last night
how can i help i begged
my heart said
write the book
contents
the hurting
the loving
the breaking
the healing
a letter
about the writer
about the book
how is it so easy for you
to be kind to people he asked
milk and honey dripped
from my lips as i answered
cause people have not
been kind to me
the first boy that kissed me
held my shoulders down
like the handlebars of
the first bicycle
he ever rode
i was five
he had the smell of
starvation on his lips
which he picked up from
his father feasting on his mother at 4 a.m.
he was the first boy
to teach me my body was
for giving to those that wanted
that i should feel anything
less than whole
and my god
did i feel as empty
as his mother at 4:25 a.m.
it is your blood
in my veins
tell me how i’m
supposed to forget
the therapist places
the doll in front of you
it is the size of girls
your uncles like touching
point to where his hands were
you point to the spot
between its legs the one
he fingered out of you
like a confession
how’re you feeling
you pull the lump
in your throat out
with your teeth
and say fine
numb really
- midweek sessions
he was supposed to be
the first male love of your life
you still search for him
everywhere
- father
you were so afraid
of my voice
i decided to be
afraid of it too
she was a rose
in the hands of those
who had no intention
of keeping her
every time you
tell your daughter
you yell at her
out of love
you teach her to confuse
anger with kindness
which seems like a good idea
till she grows up to
trust men who hurt her
cause they look so much
like you
- to fathers with daughters
i’ve had sex she said
but i don’t know
what making love
feels like
if i knew what
safety looked like
i would have spent
less time falling into
arms that were not
sex takes the consent of two
if one person is lying there not doing anything
cause they are not ready
or not in the mood
or simply don’t want to
yet the other is having sex
with their body it’s not love
it is rape
the idea that we are
so capable of love
but still choose
to be toxic
there is no bigger illusion in the world
than the idea that a woman will
bring dishonor into a home
if she tries to keep her heart
and her body safe
you pinned
my legs to
the ground
with your feet
and demanded
i stand up
the rape will
tear you
in half
but it
will not
end you
you have sadness
living in places
sadness shouldn’t live
a daughter should
not have to
beg her father
for a relationship
trying to convince myself
i am allowed
to take up space
is like writing with
my left hand
when i was born
to use my right
- the idea of shrinking is hereditary
you tell me to quiet down cause
my opinions make me less beautiful
but i was not made with a fire in my belly
so i could be put out
i was not made with a lightness on my tongue
so i could be easy to swallow
i was made heavy
half blade and half silk
difficult to forget and not easy
for the mind to follow
he guts her
with his fingers
like he’s scraping
the inside of a
cantaloupe clean
your mother
is in the habit of
offering more love
than you can carry
your father is absent
you are a war
the border between two countries
the collateral damage
the paradox that joins the two
but also splits them apart
emptying out of my mother’s belly
was my first act of disappearance
learning to shrink for a family
who likes their daughters invisible
was the second
the art of being empty
is simple
believe them when they say
you are nothing
repeat it to yourself
like a wish
i am nothing
i am nothing
i am nothing
so often
the only reason you know
you’re still alive is from the
heaving of your chest
- the art of being empty
you look just like your mother
i guess i do carry her tenderness well
you both have the same eyes
cause we are both exhausted
and the hands
we share the same wilting fingers
but that rage your mother doesn’t wear that anger
you’re right
this rage is the one thing
i get from my father
(homage to warsan shire’s inheritance)
when my mother opens her mouth
to have a conversation at dinner
my father shoves the word hush
between her lips and tells her to
never speak with her mouth full
this is how the women in my family
learned to live with their mouths closed
our knees
pried open
by cousins
and uncles
and men
our bodies touched
by all the wrong people
that even in a bed full of safety
we are afraid
father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you ask what i’m doing or where i am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. what i long to say most is. i understand this world broke you. it has been so hard on your feet. i don’t blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up t
hinking of all the places you are hurting which you’ll never care to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way i know how to tell you.
you plough into me with two fingers and i am mostly shocked. it feels like rubber against an open wound. i do not like it. you begin pushing faster and faster. but i feel nothing. you search my face for a reaction so i begin acting like the naked women in the videos you watch when you think no one’s looking. i imitate their moans. hollow and hungry. you ask if it feels good and i say yes so quickly it sounds rehearsed. but the acting. you do not notice.
i can’t tell if my mother is
terrified or in love with
my father it all
looks the same
i flinch when you touch me
when my mother was pregnant
with her second child i was four
i pointed at her swollen belly confused at how
my mother had gotten so big in such little time
my father scooped me in his tree trunk arms and
said the closest thing to god on this earth
is a woman’s body it’s where life comes from
and to have a grown man tell me something
so powerful at such a young age
changed me to see the entire universe
rested at my mother’s feet
i struggle so deeply
to understand
how someone can
pour their entire soul
blood and energy
into someone
without wanting
anything in
return
- i will have to wait till i’m a mother
no
it won’t
be love at
first sight when
we meet it’ll be love
at first remembrance cause
i’ve seen you in my mother’s eyes
when she tells me to marry the type
of man i’d want to raise my son to be like
every revolution
starts and ends
with his lips
what am i to you he asks
i put my hands in his lap
and whisper you
are every hope
i’ve ever had
in human form
my favorite thing about you is your smell
you smell like
earth
herbs
gardens
a little more
human than the rest of us
i know i
should crumble
for better reasons
but have you seen
that boy he brings
the sun to its
knees every
night
you are the faint line
between faith and
blindly waiting
- letter to my future lover
nothing is safer
than the sound of you
reading out loud to me
- the perfect date
he placed his hands
on my mind
before reaching
for my waist
my hips
or my lips
he didn’t call me
beautiful first
he called me
exquisite
- how he touches me
i am learning
how to love him
by loving myself
he says
i am sorry i am not an easy person to want
i look at him surprised
who said i wanted easy
i don’t crave easy
i crave goddamn difficult
the very thought of you
has my legs spread apart
like an easel with a canvas
begging for art
i am ready for you
i have always
been
ready for you
- the first time
i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire
love will come
and when love comes
love will hold you
love will call your name
and you will melt
sometimes though
love will hurt you but
love will play no games
cause love knows life
has been hard enough already
i’d be lying if i said
you make me speechless
the truth is you make my
tongue so weak it forgets
what language to speak in
he asks me what i do
i tell him i work for a small company
that makes packaging for—
he stops me midsentence
no not what you do to pay the bills
what drives you crazy
what keeps you up at night
i tell him i write
he asks me to show him something
i take the tips of my fingers
place them inside his forearm
and graze them down his wrist
goose bumps rise to the surface
i see his mouth clench
muscles tighten
his eyes pore into mine
as though i’m the reason
for making them blink
i break gaze just as
he inches toward me
i step back
so that’s what you do
you command attention
my cheeks flush as
i smile shyly
confessing
i can’t help it
you might not have been my first love
but you were the love that made
all the other loves
irrelevant
you’ve touched me
without even
touching me
how do you turn
a forest fire like me
so soft i turn into
running water
you look like you smell of
honey and no pain
let me have a taste of that
your name is
the strongest
positive and negative
connotation in any language
it either lights me up or
leaves me aching for days
you talk too much
he whispers into my ear
i can think of better ways to use that mouth
it’s your voice
that undresses me
my name sounds so good
french kissing your tongue
you wrap your fingers
around my hair
and pull
this
is how you make
music out of me
- foreplay
on days
like this
i need you to
run your fingers
through my hair
and speak softly
- you
i want your hands
to hold
not my hands
your lips
to kiss
not my lips
but other places
i need someone
who knows struggle
as well as i do
someone
willing to hold my feet in their lap
on days it is too difficult to stand
the type of person who gives
exactly what i need
before i even know i need it
the type of lover who hears me
even when i do not speak
is the type of understanding
i demand
- the type of lover i need
you move my hand
between my legs
and whisper
make those pretty little fingers dance for me
- solo performance
we’ve been arguing more than we ought to. about things neither of us remember or care about cause that’s how we avoid the bigger questions. instead of asking why we don’t say i love you to one another as often as we used to. we fight about things like: who was supposed to get up and turn the lights off first. or who was supposed to pop the frozen pizza in the oven after work. taking hits at the most vulnerable parts of one another. we’re like fingers on thorns honey. we know exactly where it hurts.
and everything is on the table tonight. like that one time you whispered a name i’m pretty sure wasn’t mine in your sleep. or last week when you said you were working late. so i called work but they said you’d already left a couple hours ago. where were you for those couple hours.