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Following nearly two years in flux, a constant and unpredictable flow of loss and accrual, I am afraid to say that I have achieved stasis. Life has its ups and downs, but my sea no longer churns and tosses to extremes without warning. It has been two months since I was racked with sudden grief, five since I've had to buy smaller jeans. Emotionally and physically, there seems to be a level of dependability. My social circle, too, has coalesced into comfort. I can do and be without unreasonable questioning of my motives, which have really never changed. I sloughed targets from my back. My fear of naming stability it is not because I fear it. I fear the jinx.
I have never enjoyed unpredictability, so much of my life thus far having been dictated by it. Poverty and violence, the volatile moods of those around me, I was never permitted a routine of contentment. I could only count on that I could count on nothing. I've made things simple for myself. Difficult decisions comprised only of what to wear and how to wear it. I know what I'm eating and when. I pay a bill the same day it comes in the mail, and I never question whether I can pay it. I work out. I take baths and do yoga on Sundays. Knowing what I'm doing ahead of time eases my anxious mind. Clearing out the intangible clutter took every mote of energy I had. Physical mess and cat hair accumulated noticed but untouchable around me. Things broke, and I couldn't fix them. I've begun to remedy these things. I can hope to maintain them now, and get rid of things I've clung to for too long. Old clothes I don't ever want to fit into again, but kept because to throw them away meant to relive the last time I wore them. To hold them in my hands is to feel the feelings, to smell the air on that day, and most of them, like I was, are heavy and sad. I should have waited until I could open the windows, feel warm breeze, and smell fresh green outside, but the moment came and I had to take it. Garbage bags filled and waiting for me to take them to Goodwill in the hopes they'll have happier times ahead because I know I do.
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 Today I strike
Tired of being struck For being born a woman In a world molded by resentful men I remove my presence from society Withdraw my kindnesses And my cruelties Throw out my cog in the economic engine Because resented and small Though I may be I matter As much as any man If not more If you take away my body Level me to atoms The sum of my parts And his Are identical The loss of me perhaps greater For what I can do Where he can't I do the same work Multiplied And more Empathy blended with analysis Softness twisting steel Cutting through his false bravado A hot knife to his narcissistic throat Envied for my skill Hated just the same Because to be a girl Is to incur scorn from infancy Today I show what a world without me is like I know I will be missed For all of the things I do For all of the things I don't I take with me my sugar and spice My seventy seven cents Enjoy your bland, broke day  You gifted me sculptures in January
In exchange for stories I told you You said they were diamonds That I should wear thick gloves To protect my hands from sharp edges I believed you and I took them home I left them outside So I could watch them glint in the sun Rainbows thrown on the snow It's March, and we are thawing The edges of hard things softening Slowly dripping These gifts you gave Are showing their truths Disappearing evanescent Your lies watering the crocuses Bulbs forming blades emerging from the dirt Did you know the waste of your words? Or did you believe Gems torn from snow Would last our lives? You gave me sculptures Gratitude for stories Telling your own all the while But only mine were wrought from fact  Shadows tell softer lies
Than mirrors Than your eyes Than your lips Than your calloused hands Possessively draping my hips I know I don't belong But where I'm meant to be isn't clear So keep telling those lies Loudly enough for me to hear I won't look at the wall At the way the light plays tricks On our lines Blending one into another When separate is what we are You say that you mean it I know that I don't Unable to tell a lie So I won't  A generation born in an ice storm
An existence encased in glass Trained faith to the intangible Making wishes to watch them melt Saying I love you is easy Saying I trust you is not Wagons without horses Only dying stars to hitch Forced resilience a toll paid to Darwin's spirit Evolving wings in place of roots Buying flat pack furniture Since permanence is someone else's hallucination The weight of an oaken heirloom Too much to bear In case of sudden flight Stacked in concrete blocks Five and six to a cell It's what we can afford Grass and trees slashed from the budget Luxuries sacrificed to the body's relentless Need to feed Vilified for selfishness By the ones who threw us out With the bathwater Because there was cash at the bottom of the tub We froze Glazed over Immobilized by the elements But you still ask why we're so cold When you had the summer of love And left us a long winter of discontent  You were always too big
Always too loud You stayed too long at parties And made inappropriate passes You had a bear's spirit Destined to lumber To frighten initiates But you were born only a man Your heart was kind That was what mattered You'd give the shirt off your back The food from your plate To anybody you thought might want it It's been years since I've seen you Floating in different circles Fate interfering with intersection But I knew you were there People talk I heard the news Looked and looked again There are only questions Destined to go unanswered Facts ground fine in the rumor mill Chaff mingling particulate with the consumable I'm not ready to choke it down I hope your flight was smooth That you had a first class ticket That the flight attendant winked at you Free drinks all the way You've joined your brethren And I'll think of you when I gaze at the sky Searching for Ursa Major  You put me on trial
In your kangaroo court Fabricated charges Created damning evidence Bribed the jury And convicted me without hearing my testimony You sentenced me to death Dealt the final blow yourself Watched as I twitched my last You were satisfied For a moment or two You've had time to think Haunted by my silent, wide eyed ghost Realized the choice was wrong You still can't fully confess your folly You'd like to resurrect me Thinking your powers of persuasion Can bring back your dead My body may animate Words may come from my tongue Smooth and hard like sea-glass But you're not that skilled Nor observant enough To note there's no glint My irises dull and milky Stones instead of suns The dead will only rise When they know You won't kill them again A pact signed in your blood But you won't suffer the cut  I held my breath
As you broke my heart It took weeks for you to do it I turned blue And I missed you the whole time I know whose bed you share now You know I refused to share it And the reasons for my choice Preyed upon us both Failing with one, tried the other Sometimes within hours You laughed when I warned you Told me you'd shut it down I hope it keeps you warm That the emptiness in you fills Your youth is a fuel And a joker in a game without wilds Maybe you'll change the game But I'd bet you get played Choosing that heart over this Guaranteeing yours will break in the balance Two out of three ain't bad  You went searching
Dug deep Your shovel forming mounds As you sunk lower Perhaps you found what you sought Metal clanking on ancient artifact But you're a poor engineer Didn't shore up the four walls you'd made It started as a trickle One particle at a time Cascading to your blackened boots And you didn't see Thought it had become easier The digging becoming looser Scooping what you'd already thrown Piling slide on avalanche It'll be in your mouth soon Choking it down Filling you with someone else's filth It's what you wanted To bury yourself You struck out alone Told nobody where you were going This place is remote Screaming won't help you And neither will I It's me you dug for Me you found Broke me from hard earned rest Cupped your hands and lifted me by a heel Out of this hole I'm walking away now Your pleas are becoming muffled And there's a smile forming on my lips Color returning to my cheeks I came away clean Your luck was not so good Like your grasp of physics In relation to the digging of hard black earth Or your decreasing ability to breathe  I am an accessory
A shiny bauble worn to distract from the day to day Taken off And set aside when the world needs no softening I am neither vital nor integral To anything but a specific ensemble To me I am yours Moments consumed with you I anxiously wait For the next time I catch your capricious eye Content to be held While you're holding |
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