 Spoonfed weakness grain by grain
Accumulating in my belly As stones in a bird's craw Weighing me down And I can't fly Or flee Fingers stuck down my throat Trying to vomit them up Knowing they won't come And the idea Of slitting myself open To reach in and pull them out Is too much to bear I know it's been done to us all Told it was others just like us who did it I maintain that they didn't know They were seeding boulders of suspicion Instead of pearls of grace From the same spoons For which they'd opened their own mouths wide As baby girls As young women As mothers Suffused with the poison Of contempt and competition Content to waste To wish We looked like we did a year ago Before we had children Before we had lives of our own Before puberty gave us bodies With lines that aren't straight Always beautiful in a time that isn't now Because to admit your beauty is here In this moment Is a strength And to be strong will render us Unwantable Unneedable Undesirable Unlovable Unworthy Alone in a world that's already cruel enough For girls But that boy over there He says he's strong Smart Handsome Rewarded with attaboy and pats on the back By everyone he meets Why are we different? Why is he applauded and I am scorned? Our squirming origin the same
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 I'm leaving by accident
Just as I arrived Borne aloft by the hope of love Blown west like a dandelion's clock Waiting for your voice Saying "go!" on the wind But this time It's not the going that's happenstance It's the reason The knowledge of home In a place I've never seen A permanence determined And I'm not afraid of forever Like I always have been To quell my impatient fidget I prepare Writing lists Making plans Learning new languages Revisiting old ones And I know we won't use them Much or at all But it stills the clamor Quiets my "when?" Redirecting the instinct to bolt Without looking back  And there is a weight in my chest
Too heavy to lift Compressing my lungs So I'm sipping careful breaths Of air so thin it stings This is what it is to miss you Living half a life Just enough to sustain me Not enough to fulfill I want the small things Keys dropped next to each other on the table A shared ice cream spoon in the sink Streaky with residue no amount of licking can remove My ribs expanding to their fullest And you next to me This feeling is new A tie that binds without binding The weight of waiting A goal without definition  It's the twinge of healed bone in a cold snap
A distant echo of pain you've long since forgotten And you're suddenly, inexplicably angry At your traitorous self For the reminder That you haven't (maybe can't ever) Set it entirely right So you apologize to everyone Except yourself For your failings Which nobody else sees Until you shine light on them As penance for your lack of resilience This is what I've broken This is what won't mend This is what pulses and bleeds What makes me stumble And why I won't take a hand Offered to help me up Because I deserve this Look at all I've done and shouldn't All I haven't but could have Maybe someday I will no longer flinch Untold winters since Under my belt But not today So please don't leave Have the patience I don't To love me just as I am |
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