I must be missing my rib cage
that protective armor that everybody else has.
A physical cage
to shield their vulnerable hearts.
Because when others get stabbed in the chest
they seem to shake off the shock
and I’m the only one walking around
with a river of blood trailing behind me.
Soul Sisterhood:
Sitting on the hardwood floors in the middle of the night
Talking about nothing and everything like we knew anything at all.
Saturday afternoons filled with laughter
when they should be filled with studying.
While everyone else makes a contest out of their stress,
we make a contest out of bad puns and throwing sharp objects.
Phone calls and cookie cake and losing the drinking games
And realizing that these are the good old days
that you’re living in right now.
I’d like to think the woman at the well held her head high as she walked,
Ignoring the whispers of “whore” and “disgrace.”
She held her head high not for arrogance
But because the alternative would have been to crumble
Under the weight of their words
Before she was washed by the very water she went to retrieve.
There’s a reason that shattered ribs are the most painful injuries.
They are supposed to protect the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.
But they also block it and hide it away from those who can benefit from the beating of our hearts.
And it’s only when we shatter the rib cage,
Shatter the walls,
Bleed through the pain,
That we can see our hearts for what they truly are:
Broken and bleeding and beautiful
All at once.
Too often it feels like a curse to feel things so deeply.
A weight on my chest that will never lighten.
But lately I’ve gotten tired of carrying that weight around.
I’ve decided to put pressure on it,
That heavy lump of coal that makes it hard to breathe.
If I push enough,
Push the curse of feeling too much,
Push the guilt, the fear, the anger and emotion,
Perhaps that weighted coal will start to glimmer like a diamond.
And feeling too deeply will finally feel like a blessing
Instead of a heavy curse.
I have decided to make peace with this body of mine.
I can’t even recall the first voice that told me I should hate her.
There have been so many I’ve forgotten their names.
Instead I’ll value at the dip over my waistband,
For it means I can afford food.
I’ll love the curves in places curves “shouldn’t” be,
For it represents rebellion in all the best ways.
And I’ll cherish the lumps and bumps
For they mean I have lived and breathed and used this body well.
How sad for those who think alone means lonely.
They can’t see my thoughts swirling in my mind,
Or feel the heat of my mug of coffee wrapped in my palms
As I pen out my dreams.
Alone but not lonely,
Because I’m connected not only to people
But to the salt of this earth.
Sun on my skin,
Grass on my toes.
Alone and far from lonely
Because I have stopped fearing the person in the mirror
And instead have asked her how I can help,
How I can treat her with the kindness she deserves.
Those who think alone means lonely
Have yet to befriend the deepest parts of themselves
The parts that make “alone”
Not so solitary.
Sometimes I feel like I have no personality,
That each iteration of me is just a reflection to my environment.
A reaction to whoever I’m in the room with,
Who I want to impress,
Or who I want to be like.
Other times I feel like my personality overwhelms me.
I have too much of it, too much of me.
Feelings and thoughts and expressions tumble together
Into an indescribable mess of a person
Who cannot define herself.
Rarely do I simply feel like a person
Instead of an extreme of a dual personality.
Fruit
If I learned anything in my time studying literature, it’s
that fruit is sexy.
Fruit often represents pleasure. Represents sex.
Juicy plums and pomegranates that get plucked and
stroked and tasted
Are filled with more sensual imagery than any modern
pornography.
The poets of the Victorian era knew this.
They wrote of women holding apples and melons,
delicately plucking grapes.
It’s enough to make you blush
When you walk down the produce aisle in search of
bananas.
Fruit is sweet, a dessert, a gift to be enjoyed.
There is nothing more satisfying than watermelon on a
summer day
Or a crisp apple in the midst of fall.
There is nothing processed or manufactured about it,
Yet, it remains wonderful.
What is sexier than something created with care
Whose only purpose is to bring joy to those who enjoy
it?
But what happens to fruit when it is tossed on the
ground of the grocery store?
What happens when bruises prick the skin of the apples
and nectarines that were not handled delicately?
What happens when someone thinks they know better
And their fingertips break the skin of something fragile,
Even if it thought it was strong?
What happens when the fruit is not enjoyed because
someone didn’t understand how they should treat it?
What happens when it rots?
Bright pinks and purples and reds and yellows grown
dim and dark and brown and black. The colors that
once meant love and joy turn into darkness and pain at
the hand of another.
Do you understand the metaphor yet like I understood
my sophomore year of college
When I watched a boy slip a hand under my sorority
sister’s blouse
After she’d already told him no?
Told him she didn’t feel well,
Told him she’d had more alcohol than she had planned.
Do you understand that fruit is only delicious
When the person handling it handles it with care?
Otherwise it becomes squished underneath the too
tight grasp,
The lift pushed out of it without its consent?
Ruined.
Do you understand that we were supposed to enjoy the
love that the Earth gave us in the form of round, red
fruits
And instead we are forcing them to rot with our
inability to take the focus off
ourselves?
We blame the Earth, say it is not fertile enough,
Its branches were asking for it,
The fruit was dangling itself in front of me begging to be
picked
But figs picked too soon become figs forgotten.
What do we do with rotten fruit?
We throw it away.
We put it in the garbage. We say “you are of no use to
me anymore” even though it was a gift from the Earth
A gift from the one who created the earth, who s
aid,
“Eat all you want, aside from this one.”
And we couldn’t even follow that one rule.
We had to grab, take, dig our fingers into something
that wasn’t ours.
Decide that we were in charge.
So when fruit wilts we wrinkle our nose,
We say it is not our problem anymore.
We throw it away with no second thought.
But…there is another way.
A harder way.
You can plant it. Cover it in dirt. Let it sit in the mud.
It is not a pretty afterlife, but it is one that brings new
life.
It lifts up the seeds of others,
Lifts up the seeds that were deep inside itself
The ones overlooked by all those who harmed it
The ones that once came from something beautiful.
Your beautiful self, which feels like an echo of a
memory of a past life.
But the seeds of it are still there.
Still capable of life.
Still capable to grow from the ground that you were
pushed into.
Still capable to thrive.
We’re all born with a volume level set at 10.
Screaming, crying, shouting our way into life and existence.
But it doesn’t take long for someone to adjust the knobs.
Not our loved ones,
But the world that we are born into.
Why is it that my volume is it an eight
but her volume is at a three
all because the color of her skin?
Don’t they know she has important things to say?
Stop hitting the down button.
Stop punching “mute.”
It’s hard to demand these things
When the people in charge have been doing it for centuries.
It is my job to lower my already high volume that I did not have to work to increase.
It is my job to listen to the volume of black and brown voices
That have been drowned out by the static of white supremacy
For years and years.
It is not my job to shout louder
And claim I’m turning the knob for them instead.
I hate the difficulty of healing.
It cannot done by skill, by luck,
By being the MVP or employee of the month.
The only cure we’ve found for sure is the one we cannot craft.
You can’t blog away the pain
Or lift enough weights to create a new you,
Creating art is healthier than getting drunk,
But the pain is still messy, still unable to fit in a box that you can check off and move on from.
Even the best grievers,
The vulnerable ones, open with their hurt,
Seeking help and giving themselves a break,
Are still aching and wondering why,
If they’re doing everything right,
Does it still hurt
So, so much?
And at the end of a day you’ve packed to the brim with business
As an attempt to distract and deplete any depression,
You still have to lie in bed with yourself and you pain.
Alone.
Together.
Healing takes time.
It takes nights of staring at the ceiling
Days of wishing for this moment a year from now.
And lifetimes to accept that the only way to heal
Is to live through your trauma.
Day by day
By day
By day.
To the friendships that have faded,
Blurred with time past and miles driven,
The ghost of your presence still lingers within me.
To the ones I loved
That taught me empathy and joy,
I still check your Instagram to make sure you’re okay.
To the ones I miss
That I’ve typed and deleted text messages to,
I’m not quite sure what to make of us anymore.
And to the ones that hurt and harmed,
And cut me down to the bone with sharp words and razor claws...
Goodbye and good luck and good riddance to you too.
I spent too much time thinking that you were worth any.
Some pain will break you into a million pieces.
Scatter your soul and crack open the depth of your character.
As you sit among the destruction, numb and desperate to curl into yourself and give up,
Because not even you know who you are anymore.
But honey, you must rise.
Rise from the shock, for it will make you wise.
Rise from the shame, for it will keep you humble,
Rise from the hurt, because it will mold your heart into a lion’s.
After all, when you’re shattered on the floor,
And you can either be dragged to your feet with angry grumbling
Or rise like a phoenix from the ashes of your old self.
This man is so beautiful.
He takes darkness and makes it deeper,
Turning a color that should be nothingness into a rich night sky
Where his eyes are stars shining amidst it.
He takes sadness and makes it art
A hollow heart beating to melody of an unknown catharsis
Of unknown, potential hope.
He is beautiful because he has been fighting demons
That arrived when he was nine and never left.
He hasn’t yet learned how to force them out
Or maybe he has. Saying is always easier than doing
And murdering the metaphors that plague his soul
Is still too hard, no matter how strong he looks.
He is beautiful not because of the way his hair falls in his eyes
Or how his hands grip a glass.
He is beautiful because he is surviving amidst his darkness.
He is beautiful because he is finally starting to believe that he can.
You, sir, are beautiful.
Look how far you’ve come from the depths of your darkness.
The journey you’ve traveled that was misunderstood by others
Looked down upon by toxic masculinity
Has brought closer to a place of peace.
Keep going.
Once upon a time
I burned the pages of my fairytale books
And decided to build my own outside the spines of books
By growing a spine myself.
Forgiving them will mend the soul.
But I’m not there yet.
I’m not whole.
Let the light be warm,
A small halo,
A circle of yellow and a small audience,
Because the truth is rarely as popular as pretty lies.
But the people who bought tickets to the best show in town
Are not in the back getting drinks
Or on their phones at the table.
They are listening, hungry to hear,
Focused on the small spotlight
Rather than the neons of distraction outside.
Please fall in love with me.
I will fill notebooks with words about your hands,
How your eyes crinkle at the corners when you smile.
I will kiss you good morning whether sunlight streams
through the curtains
Or rain falls on the roof above.
I will ask about your day and listen while you tell me
That Karen is still an idiot,
But at least everyone else knows it too.
I will send you pictures from the internet that remind
me of you,
Of us,
Of inside jokes.
Please fall in love with me.
Because I am already in love with you.
I have been conditioned to believe
That if I’m not working my ass off,
Losing sleep, drinking coffee for meals,
And on the verge of a breakdown of burnout...
Then I am lazy,
Entitled,
And deserve nothing.
These lies will burn out an entire generation
Moments after their matches are lit
And before we can bring light
To the wrongness of these norms.
Shaky
For as long as I can remember, I have hated my voice.
For the bulk of my life it’s been a Russian roulette
Of if I sound like I’m about to cry,
And in turn self-sabotage any authority I have in front
of others.
When I stood in front of my tenth graders on their first
day of sophomore year and my first day of teaching, I
could barely get a word out.