Growing up I often heard things like, “you are too emotional”, “people that think that way are fools”, “you have no sense of humor”, and “just be happy and things will turn around.” I heard it so often that sometimes I say these graceless things to myself, and that’s where the real work remains. Sound …
I no longer resent my idle angelscozy and sipping their teaon new moon nightscasually talking over the soundsof my muffled tears. Yet when it wasthe 10 year old insomniac,the depressed mother cradling her newborn in shame,and the married woman with an appointmentat the clinictheir chairs were the thunder claps you heardas they leapt to my …
I am unexpected. I am an out of wedlock pregnancy that solidified a union. I am a gentle kick inside my mother’s womb on her wedding day. I am the stiff upper lip as the word divorce falls upon me, wide eyed and stoic. I am a child silently hovering in the garage watching my …
Imagine the muffled sounds Of a seed weeping Begging the rain to stop At 10cm no mother Wishes death upon her baby But the sound of her tears Are the same It is the bursting in the rainstorm That brings forth new life The seed knows not what is coming And waters herself. Not believing …
Fragile and fleetingTheir growth shadows my ownI look up and there are linesIn my face Lines I’ve earnedLines I do not want erasedBy now my neuroticism has softened By way of experienceI do not wash their handsOr clean their earsWith such precision But it happened in an instantTruly, a moment The days I longed to …
I want to teach my children The nature of thingsHow on a blistering cold dayThe sun will be shiningThen rain will pour relentlesslyIn the middle of July You will arrive at the poolFloaties strapped to your armsHobbling aroundSmelling of sunscreen and hopeThe thunder will comeThe lifeguard will blow the whistleQuietly grateful for a day’s rest …
“You need a hobby” he says“Something you like to do”And there’s privilege in that statementIt hits me sitting here on the floorCutting out my hair that’s clogged the vacuum cleanerMy postpartum hair that never stopped falling outIt hits me as I rip the clumps of mefrom it’s roaring mouth To the maddening sound ofThe latest …
Like seasons we drift closerthen split.A cold front blows through middayand I didn’t pack a coat.Turning to face the sun,I realize blood is not thicker than water.for your presence leaves me shivering,amphibian and cold. Of all the rooms we sharedthe womb was my favorite.Our starting line was the same,but where we finish will be miles …
It stands to reasonMother Earth never intended for wildfires in their heat and their rage,to be the main attraction. For it is their ashes,the fertile by-product,that will feed new life. Likewise, then, my heartas it swells upand into my mind,is building new channels,new awakenings,making forestsout of my pain.