I wait for the dirge to play its sobbing notes of sorrow
I wish away the grief that I don’t want to swallow
And yet I’ll sit with you; your body hollow
Wishing you back to life.
I wail to the moon and stars my gypsy heart defective
My fists beat my chest; no longer your keeper protective
sending morose squalls of melancholic reflective
Wishing you back to life.
My “Silent but Deadly” litany chants in my head
“Don’t open your throat, let the demons be fed”
I want to reach out. I want to be heard. But…
Reality isn’t where I want to be disturbed
My brushes lay colorless, lifeless as corpses
My observances from the corner, bodily divorces
I’m running like hell hounds know my name
The bridges start smoldering in fingers of blame
and they all return to me. Their rejection is plain to see
If I’m not them, I’m never good enough as me.
I am not a good girl
Why do I need to act like a “lady?” What does that even mean? Be a yes, sir, no ma’am demure wall flower in hopes that I’ll get picked to be the next Cinderella? Does that mean I have to put someone else before me always and pray that my needs get met because I was a good girl and followed the rules?
Why do I need to play like a boy when I can be a woman and ditch cars, ride horses, bake cakes, kick dirt, saw wood, paint wordy pictures, dream just like any other human? Why does that even have to have a gender placed on it? We all know what we can do, why separate the two?
Why do I have to be respectable in public when the public slut shames my gender? Starts war upon my sisters with horrible results and back-alley horrors committed against their beauty out of spite, anger, jealousy? Why do I have to bow down to the “mighty” man of six years old because he was born with a penis and I was not? Fuck that. I’ll be who I am. You adapt to me. I’ll color just enough inside the lines so that you’ll have no choice but to look at my art, but when you start telling me that a sun has to be yellow and not purple, we’re no longer friends and I don’t have to be nice to you any more.
Why can’t I be passionate no matter where I am? No matter where I’m going? No matter what I’m doing? If I feel it, why should I make an excuse for loving my life and everything about it? This seems insulting to the very gifts I’ve been given. This seems selfish of me to hold back the beauty that is everything I am. It’s disgraceful to not be passionate about the life-gift we’ve been given and I don’t think it has anything to do about being a sexual being.
I treat my body like a temple, not a mausoleum. I don’t need quiet pristine walls to know that I’m alive. I need vibrant colors, loud music, laughter and singing, dancing at all hours with colors winging the ceilings and candles and joyous arousal. I need hats and capes, and delicious chocolates dripping with harmony. I’m here to live life not pretend I only want a little bit of a taste. I want the whole damn thing. I want to swallow it whole and chew for hours on ideas and thoughts of what I see; experience on every level.
Why can’t I treat my body like a motel if I want to? Why can’t I take a lover into my arms, no matter the number, no matter the reason? Why should I be held to a different standard than someone who happens to have different genitalia? Why do I need to limit myself to the taste and pleasures of one gender? What if I want to dip fingers into honey as much as I want to lick my lips up the honey dipper? Why can’t I smear sex on my body like peanut butter if I desire it? That’s a horrible double standard and I refuse your rule book, your little black marks, your stigma, and your anger towards my freedom to choose what I do with my body. It’s not some body. It’s MY body. See that? It’s not called YOUR body. It’s MY body. I can have a revolving door if I choose, so don’t dictate my hours or my calling. It’s not your motel to run. I’m sorry you’ve found the Bates Motel more to your liking, lurking with the dead and dispassionate. That’s not me.
I refuse to love unconditionally. If I were to do that, I’d be God or Goddess, or Buddha or Christ and I’m not any of those. I’m a human. I can look at you with disgust if I want to. I can refuse you entry to my chapel of horrors and my circus if I don’t like your act. I don’t owe you anything which, as many misconceive is what love is when it’s unconditional. That, in many people’s minds means without question. I’m not going to love someone who harms children, particularly me. No way. Been there done that and I’ve served my life sentence every day since my birth. No. I will not.
This part I can agree with. I will speak my truth and I will live as honestly as I can. Not for your benefit but because my spirit is peaceful when I know I’ve done my best to follow my own compass without your rules holding me to unrealistic and unreasonable behavioral constructs that do not belong in my body, mind, spirit, or hands. What I will further agree with is that if you trust me with your heart and I trust you with mine which means we vow, with word or not, to never betray that trust intentionally, you will never again have to feel alone.
To be placed in saint’s clothing as if death redeemed
The unresolved battles that forced childhood screams
From the mouths of his children starvation abounds
For the three little words that nary met sound
From his lips that lay silent and poison the earth
From his violent life that began with his birth
There will be no clock hands stopped in his honor
No looking glasses covered now that he’s a goner
There will be no wailing with heartbeats bereft
Absent black cotton gloves like W. H. Auden suggests
No kerchiefs stained with tears to be tucked into pockets
No loving memories or pictures in lockets
No words of compassion for the soul left to cry
That embraced angry notions and turned a blind eye
There are no clothes befitting to cover his bones
He chose life without love. He perished alone.
What clothes shall be placed on the dead deemed unworthy?
While he is yet considered unfit by the clergy.
I hate that the wound I thought was scarred was torn open with Christmas glee
while his wreck of appearance desecrated my safe haven, my holy place, my privacy.
He pulled up a truck to my front windows and loaded it with trash from their home
While I made sure not to move the blinds but with caution because I’m alone.
Seeing him made my heart crumple up like worthless discarded paper
at least as far as he’s concerned,
All I wanted to be for him was a guide as his empowered future shaper.
I wanted to be a guardian of the light I saw within him,
but from his mind, and through his eyes, his light is just too dim.
And so I sit crying while he drives off across the grass of my house
with another bag of garbage leaving wisdom non-espoused.
Taking the journey of a thousand miles
Begins with a step, like those of a child
Returning to home or breaking one down
Making either world turn upside down
Taking the challenge that long is awaited
Bulldozing through obstacles unabated
Loyalty valiant to some of the house
Struggling for liberty in emotional joust.
What once was a longing, a need, an addiction
Is now a source of painful contradiction.
What one house rejects and claims desire
The other beckons with strength in the sire
What confusion lay in the mind of the child
To remain in chaos, trust long defiled
The raping of faith, knocked down from up high
denied the dreams with nary tears in the eyes
Blame things on everything, never their own
In the mean time, for eons, one stands alone
Time has passed by, much time indeed
When the child understands for them, no need
Abandoned, refused, forgotten, unwanted
Should the journey begin, progress undaunted?
Should the heart set aside the anger and sorrow?
Should the child remember there is always tomorrow?
The escape hatch is opened, standing ajar:
Will the house be destroyed from the will from afar?
Will temptation desecrate the once sacred heart?
Is all that it takes is a short time apart?
Go away.
He sat in the back seat using his hands as a rosary
praying to holy mother Rosemary his sin not be discovered.
The violation of my air space undetected by his stealth
suddenly had air raid sirens blaring loudly,
“HOW DARE YOU?!” upon my radar screen
while I drove away and prayed the guards were adept.
Am I Schrodinger’s cat locked in a coffin that I can’t see?
Am I my own imagination come to life or who others want to see?
Am I an earthquake that shakes the foundation of your beliefs?
Am I the whirlwind that’s met with cautious alacrity?
Am I so enigmatic I am hidden even from myself?
Am I a magician’s assistant that performs with infuriating stealth?
Who am I when there’s nobody around to witness me?
Am I just a wanderer piloting my ship on the popped blue collar sea?
In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.
I’ve loved you since before you were born
When I saw your face pressed
Like a violet captured
In an ultrasound I no longer have
But cherish as a vivid revered memory
As in fairy tales of old
Many lies were told
And you were stolen and kept far from your home,
from my active loving heart.
And I wept.
I’ve loved you since the papers crumpled
Unused, only to be recycled,
When the death of hope is heard
In the confetti shaped heart
That is irreparable, devoid of cohesion
Bleeding the tears of mourning
That burn with the lies told
The familial curse stood as firmly as a parapet.
And still I wept.
I’ve loved you since I witnessed your slavery
Removed with greed, falsehoods,
Shifting legends of half-truths expressed
Under the guise of protection
Under the threat of theft called the improper noun
Rebuked with abandonment
Suffered the neglect of compassion
A soul reviled, refused encouragement
Violated in every way possible.
I still wept.
I’ve loved you since before I strapped on my armor
To storm the cotton fields wrought with personal terror
With machete drawn high in the air,
Shackles of truth for the liars to wear
Jangling on my hip with keys nowhere to be found.
The hovel proclaimed as his kingdom rotted
From the inside out with starving zombies
Clawing at the doors and windows trying to escape
I saw your fetal position and spirited you away
And we wept.
I’ve loved you since I became your Harriet Tubman,
Your underground railroad to freedom
I sheltered you in loving arms with my heart repaired
Embracing the Old to reject the new wave
At the same time embracing the New and rejecting the old
Hearing your pain mocked, examining trauma
After trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma
And feeling the rebuke of your fears whipped at me
The refusal of your champion for lack of worth
The loss of faith in hope and healing
And I weep.
I loved who I became because of your life
My superhero cape dancing in the wind
As I advocated for the better world that you deserve
As I championed a life with choices once denied you
As I believed in your potential, indulgent of possibilities
Lifting your chin so your eyes could see success
Found with the wings of encouragement
With every required tool available
At the beckoning of your unwilling fingers,
Your imprisoned mind,
Your blinded foresight,
Your despised, abused, and hated body.
You have removed my necessity, discarded my gifts
Refused your glory for the sake of self-loathing
And I weep, but always I will love you.
Peacock Feathers
From her lips, anguish spewed
like a witch’s window skewed
Hurricanes of self pity storms
Anchors of the loveless mourned
Eden justified with words then spoken
Taking up arms, to mend the broken.
The potent omens
the yet sung dirge
balked faith healers
faithful purge.
words. hearts. secrets.
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