#prose poem
Boxes
I pack it all up in boxes
I lug it from place to to place
It weighs down on my spine,
The toll this life will take.
Our lives are packed in kindling,
The world will take its tithe,
We wait in silence together
For the match to strike the grease
I can’t remember sunshine
My hurts cast too long a shade
What’s it like to drop my defenses,
Leave my hurts, erase my hate?
I want to know the feeling,
But I’m scared of what I’ll find
Will this really feel like freedom,
Or just another shackle bind?
not like other girls
was a title i coveted
but never earned.
i wrote off makeup,
i stopped talking about fairies and mermaids
to research superheroes.
i quit ballet in favor of taekwondo
but even in a plain white dobok and a brown tti,
dripping sweat and exhaustion
i was not enough.
i was vengeful in my frustration
notorious for the blood on my gloves—
we weren’t supposed to aim for the nose
but i was smaller and younger
and a good actress.
deep down i think i knew
i would never be like the girls
who weren’t like other girls,
and that made me wonder
what about other girls was so bad,
and why there were no boys
who weren’t like other boys.
i expected other girls to be what i’d seen on tv
and read in books,
but instead i was met with compliments,
kind eyes and genuine voices,
proclaiming boys were to be seen and not heard.
i learned that i was pretty
and i looked cute in pink
and the school confiscates pocketknives
but keys fit between your fingers.
i fell in love with other girls
when they took his sneer as a declaration of war,
unleashed their tongues like rabid dogs
in defense of girls they’d never spoken to
and flashed sharp grins
when their words bit hard enough
to reward them with tears.
i watched in awe
as other girls filed their nails into claws,
drove needles through their ears and noses
and lined their eyes with intimidation.
the judgement of their fathers
weighed down their bare shoulders
and adorned their short skirts
but every time he voiced it
their scissors took another inch off the bottom.
they were feral, and territorial,
they were disobedient and wanted blood,
they dressed how they wanted
and if you looked and didn’t like it
that was your problem.
i failed at not like other girls
because i met other girls
and i remembered my breath was fire
and my teeth dripped venom,
my hair was a nest of snakes
and my gaze was stone;
they knew i was a gorgon
years before i did
and now i’ve finally
become one.
cast your eyes upon me
and fall into devotion,
revel in the masterpiece that is my being
and wait helplessly
as addiction crawls up your limbs,
long for me,
touch me
and find that my skin
was carved from marble,
wonder
in your love-drunk adoration
which sculptor could have hewn
something so masterful
stand before me
and discover why
my gaze entrances the sun
and my voice bewitches the moon,
perceive me
and empathize
with the planets
as they compete to capture my interest
and the northern lights
as they pray for my attention
brush your hands along my thighs
and know
that my flesh is coiled lightning
and my bones contain the east wind,
grasp my hands
and bear witness
to the vast expanse of past and future
written in the swirls of my fingerprints
and the lines of my palms,
press your ear to my chest
and behold thunder.
caress the folds of my stomach
and know that i am made of mountains
that my muscles were knitted
from the same roots
that strangle boulders
and win,
learn the map of my veins
and be warned;
inside them surges saltwater
stolen from the deepest trenches of the sea
i cry seafoam
and spit the blood of men
who wronged me.
the universe is an artist
that makes itself in my image
every new nebula another attempt
at painting the wildfire that rages within me
and when my body does decay
all creation will rot
beside me.