Para Maia Dangling Like a seashell from My neck They don’t know How many times I’ve been pushed to the edge Only to hang on Pull myself back up again The thing is Some people just want to see You dead You misinterpret The intention So you try at being perfect It will never be good enough If they’re not invested in Seeing you alive So wake up Even if it means being a zombie Or crying everyday Wake Up Even if your presence Isn’t shiny Pretty Little charm in a box One day I found A tiny purple shell Held it in my hands And I did not hear the voice of god But I witnessed the capability Of intention So now I wake up To be better Because There is always a chance At that.
---
Para Maia translated to Brazilian Portuguese by Maia Mariana Pendendo Como a concha do mar Em meu pescoço Eles não sabem Quantas vezes Fui empurrada a beira Só para me segurar e Me levantar de novo, A questão é Algumas pessoas só querem ver Você morta Mal interpretando Sua intenção Então você tenta ser perfeito Você sabe, Nunca será bom o suficiente Se não estiverem investidos em Ver você vivo Então acorde Mesmo que isso signifique ser um zumbi Ou chorar todo dia Acorde Mesmo que sua presença Não seja brilhante, Linda Um Pequeno amuleto na caixinha Um dia eu encontrei Uma concha roxa, pequenina Segurei em minhas mãos E não ouvi a voz de Deus Mas eu testemunhei a capacidade Da intenção Então agora eu acordo Para ser melhor Porque há Sempre chances Para isso.
---
defensive
Yes. I am.
My dedication to vigilance
Saves my life every day
Holding paranoia to my nipples
snatch life by its sadistic reigns
Make it crack bend yield
Order it to continue
Cos I said so
Cos I know it can!
Men sinew around my
Radius
Murky reflective forces
Tongues stretching to me in the stillness of night
Harm first or be harmed
If you learn one thing from the manner
In which I swaddle my hurt
One bears witness to anger
Wear it all cloak like
Over my shoulders
Bathe in its eau
Til it’s choking everyone around me
Even myself
Air pushing through brick lungs
In pity
In mourning
Yet safe.
Defensive.
Yes. I am.
That’s the method
The only thing
keeps my heart pumping.
---
stared at myself In the bottom of an Indigo paisley smattered Coffee mug My tears in shards Warping the image before Moving lips To muster some trust I couldn’t smile All of the turbinado sugar Lingering with the bitter conjured Feeling something territorial In my gut It climbed through my bubbling belly From viscera to soul A crux-laden passage Gripping goodwill china My calloused ideation Memoried what do I know? Not love. I’m just… Just someone Who’s known to have it all Overthinking Excessively believing Dangerously faithful Posing conceitedly Batting fallen lashes Clawing a flaw through The rhythmic flutters Peering into the underworld Of a thrifted chalice Who else has had a communion From this vessel An insight. This blessing. Does it even matter? Everything matters! Besides me. At least this I believe. Based on a fleeting feeling In a fantasy Once washed over the gilded flesh That’s been Pulling me tightly Keeping sinful traumas inside Safe simultaneously insecure A dimension beyond
---
Who I am in this moment
Who I am in this lifetime
Who I am when penanced
Who am I if not?
I’d project lands away
From hurting body
Hurtle speedily out of mine
selfish mind
To dive into the damp grounds
Of stained steaming moka pot
Suffocate on the caffeine
Fill myself with energy
Until it slowly brewed me to a death
In dying, I seek valuation.
Worthy.
A word that haunts my admittedly
tiny worldview.
Sow I reap
A celestial wish a desire a deflection
In warping fragile ceramic reflections
A search for meaning.
keep it warm & moist
In my clasped hands.
Forged with liberty
A prayer for a sweetness,
Garnished with things I cannot touch
In between cries; suddenly forced to feel.
Teased by this infinite hunt
It’s like I’ll never gather enough
Every single time.
My desire weighs on goosebumps.
Solid, brolic, bursting
Unbridled and unknown.
---
Flesh: an affirmation ode in response to woah Vicky I will never battle with my flesh In fact, I indulge To supplement its needs Whether I eat an entire banofee pie Or drink a wheatgrass shot with magnesium My flesh is strong and my spirit is stronger I place hope and confidence in my flesh As I know it is capable My flesh is always satiated When I give it what it yearns for And the hunger Can only be satisfied by me It is my responsibility To guard my flesh Supply it Trust in it This is a process That works in collaboration With the spirit For we are one body. “The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without”
---
Pumpkin vegan nacho cheese sauce recipe Remove the pulp from the rind Sever it from the hardness Eagerly stab it with paring knife Secretly hope it will slice a finger It works. It works to bleed. Chop yourself Let the world know how ineffectiveness Has made a nest in your body Snuggling throughout organs Engulfed in warmth The yanking in a bubbling stomach A different kind of gastric bypass In an heirloom iron pot Spill sesame olive oil pulp garlic cloves Spin a spatula across the shiny metal The sizzling a lullaby to anger Can they hear that I’m dying? no, it smells too good in this kitchen Not enough people are experienced to know The honest scent of life folding Death sings with a sweetness Enhanced by aromatics It pairs well with sea salt liquid aminos Onions Deep breaths Tears that don’t fall Words thought yet never spoken Bonds are breaking on the stovetop Above the curdled heat made of gasoline flames fly in patience The pulp is ready. It’s time.
---
Rivulets
To know the rivulets Of her pussy Is to be versed In the glory Of god’s laugh lines I am running towards you Even if you are far To fall like this every time latch onto me Every piece of you Like a polypropylene blouse To a Polly pocket You wear me Heaving in pleasure Simply Cause I make you feel Pretty I make you feel.
—-
I sat my ass down And exhibited a virtue I’d been told ritualistically Then a young thing with Malleable hope Now an older still Fresh babe With the same Celestial anticipation based in reason: Patience. Then, there in my mouth Bursting and ripe Fruits of my late-stage capitalist Post-consumer Rage From Mother Nature Dripping into my bare lap Everything I’d been wanting In the cvs, on a 3 am walk down Biscayne Ariana grande singing god is a woman Message! Yeah sometimes the messenger Enjoys her body As the prop In an autonomous race play scene I get it now When all is said And done She meant That every bad gyal facing Her four horsemen Misinterpretation, whore accusations, Pulled muscles, and an ever-shifting appetite Can peep real deep and hard into the tiniest Corner, slip her acrylic under the cracks Pull all of her longing out Flip it like an arcade token Reverse it for her own sake Then Loom it into a path less traveled Grinning cheshire-ly, I slide my freshly washed feet On this rough Peaceful road
--- Jesus wept And so did I Your body Could not keep me So now in turn Mine is tallying Each anniversary This is the score The flesh is keeping My only memory of you Being a sharp pain In your viscera Were you proud of my strength? Now, I am just broken. Surely, if I sob hard enough My mother Will awaken swiftly Running To wipe my tears As Lazarus did My Mommy shall rise again Life continues without her So yes, My faith is waning Everything I know Now Is dependent on Hidden prayers Wishful thinking Small graces Selah. --- keeper. Do not let the tidal waves of new age misogyny Wash over Your burnt out Flesh and Force you to submit There is a truth You were crowned with upon Conception laying on your head Styled immaculately like a Newborn curl And it’s not your pussy As you’ve been told The soul of womanhood Does not lie in a penis or vagina For a soul is an inward thing Not an apparatus Custom tailored for you And you only an orb of otherworldly chaos You carry it Sometimes it gets lost A natural thing to happen To a key Please! Do not deduce yourself to genitalia, C sections, fluorescent lights, speculums, progesterone birth is more than their flesh Meddling with yours to tear You apart Birth is an intimate intention Forged by a fate Beyond even my comprehension In the beginning, There was Lilith wrapped up with a bloodied Cord of words Broken promises Written in the hidden folds Of wet, fresh, burning skin Can you smell it? Cauterized dermis Making its way Laying upon itself Joining together Glistening below A wicked underbelly You know this process It’s been your rite of passage Time and time again Your body leans into it: It’s called healing No matter who comes to your Corporeal altar Bearing rotting blighted fruit Feel free enough to Sit in your thoughts And Remember What it is you contain: A natural ability to foresee Shifts A congenital talent To believe in yourself They will write books about you Even if there are no real names you will know it’s for you The slime from their lips slipping Out words akin to treason evil, whore, belligerent, schizo, materialistic, batshit, golddigger, lazy, arbitrary, crossdresser, fake, wife, mother Reductionist visions Grouping you with those of your likeness For you Recognition of your greatness is suspended in futures you may never be present in this current body To see In kind to your sisters Paper will know your essence Your ethos like ink Gyrating through crisp pages Your daughters shall dance Around fires In lament my baby’s breath, you break cycles We kneel before You in awe Of all you’ve done we cry For we know You will never finish There are dead girls in every club bathroom Their flames inextinguishable whispering life into the world around them Perfumed heat between thighs Sweet sickly sweat on the walls Can you see it? There’s a dead girl in every room Waiting… for someone to care about What it is that makes Her want to live Lucky for her I am someone. I am her keeper. I pray at her feet Whilst Gripping her trembling hand Hoping she sees The raw blood atop My shaved head Knowing. I am someone. Invested in her memory Knowing. There is someone. Who will never forget Her name --- sustenance Of what? Wishing waning weenjng whining just to stay the fucking same there’s no greater enemy in this room than the thoughts fighting in my mind the people distracting you divvying pieces of your time as if they made it for you uttering your names sharpening their teeth with your story As if they’ve lived it the people dying to get to know you cannot sustain you will not So what now, little girl? what now? Speak death into me! I promise you a mouth watering crucification But what I cannot guarantee Is that I won’t be born again Prudent primordial pressure Sprints through my flesh It slows Never stops Never. --- I peer between your lips Imagine a lil cruise ship In your mouth I clean its windows With my pirouetting saliva A sleeping hand on my bosom Television lullaby Flying in and out of vivid imaginings i’ve been dreaming of the Same cloud Every night Scars against The infiltrated blue I pray beneath them To become on with G-d’s wounds Buoyed by time A salted, Spanish breeze Each day Someone is leaving, Leaving, leaving, leaving,