Poetry
poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence ~ Audre Lorde
I will not swallow the mothballs you try to feed me
I am at my softest physically and mentally
and that makes some people uncomfortable
(with themselves).
Statues of aphrodite reveal that the goddess of beauty and love
had some meat on her bones, as do I,
but I know I am not the West’s ideal type.
Maybe that’s why I’m not allowed to take up more space.
Maybe that's why I’m given less room to wiggle in.
My ass and tits have grown a bit
when it happened; I didn't realize that it was sacrilege.
I wonder what Taino deity represents beauty. I wonder what she looks like.
Is her hair long? Does she view herself as a her? Does she think she is beautiful? Or does that assessment come from others? Does she even care for beauty? Or is it just a known part of her?
I’ve gone through a metamorphosis and came out the other end thicker.
Who says the caterpillar must become a butterfly?
Maybe I’m a moth.
I like my softness, it makes me sturdier, and don’t we all need some padding
from the beatings of this world
from the beating of our own hearts
from the beating of the drums that tells you to get back up.
The butterfly is drawn to the flower.
I am drawn to the light
in the darkness.
The Clit and the Ears
My clit doesn't function
and never will,
for it’s not down there it grows
but in my ears,
my alter vaginas, the real ones
who know better to take thousands of lovers.
Nothing needs coming in,
not even an earbud
brushes.
Good chords suffice
with the right beat.
Out, out, bloody mucus, bloody men.
Better fuck my Music
than fuck myself up yet again.
This poem has also been published in Tentacle Poetry Vol. 2, a quarterly poetry zine published by Peel Street Poetry, Hong Kong, in October 2021.
Dear Mom
Dear Mom, They keep me safe here It’s not worth knowing that They’ve chopped my hair I look like a boy, now But My flesh is fragile, still At night
Dear Mom,
They keep me safe here
It’s not worth knowing that
They’ve chopped my hair
I look like a boy, now
But
My flesh is fragile, still
At night
The cold water freezes my nerves
Do I have a choice of not washing their dishes?
Had not my bruises remained raw,
I’d have waited to write
Their ointments are
Guarded by grandeur
Even when my blood
Shrieks out of my skin
Even after all,
They keep me safe here
Blue tutus and pink cleats
A stranger stares back at me when I look at the mirror. A scar I don’t recognize. Yet I know very well. A stranger looks back at me as I was up and stare at the mirror.
A stranger stares back at me when I look at the mirror.
A scar I don’t recognize. Yet I know very well. A stranger looks back at me as I was up and stare at the mirror. Movements following mine, and somehow it’s different.
A frown in place of the smile I try to muster as I glance at them.
Their hair, cut shorter than what is deemed normal for someone like me. And I am jealous.
Jealous of the fact that I can’t stand mine to be long,
And yet, if it were cut,
It feels like something is ripped out of me.
I wake up sometimes, and the stranger is gone.
But I still don’t recognize the figure in front of me.
So familiar, yet so odd.
They smile when I forcefully smile.
Which is a plus. I think.
And they have that aggravating hair.
It’s bearable to look at.
I don’t throw up.
Which is a plus.
I wake up in panic.
And I can’t breathe.
I can’t see the stranger or the familiar figure.
And I feel like my insides are being turned.
Where are they?
It’s terrifying. The idea of them being gone.
Why are they gone?
When I can’t find either of them, I feel like vomiting.
A sense of despair clings to me as I stare at the blank mirror.
No one is staring back at me.
It feels like my lungs are filling with water, and I am drowning. Drowning in this nonexistent sea.
Trying to float, and yet I can’t.
Because the more I try, the more I feel like I am sinking.
Sinking with a heavy nonexistent ship.
And all I can hear is static.
Numbness all around me .
Making me wish I had drowned.
These are the days I avoid mirrors.
I avoid the color blue and the color pink.
Which makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a train.
Except sometimes it feels like a train is a lighter punishment, Compared to what I feel.
It lasts days, before the stranger comes back.
And I don’t know whether to be elated or enraged.
Excited that they’re back, that they are there,
That I don’t have to do this alone, or angry.
Angry for not being normal.
Despite feeling relief that they are back, I avoid the mirror for days. Before I can get comfortable with who’s staring back at me. Features different from what people call the norm.
Yet blinking when I do.
Brushing their teeth when I do.
And it takes days for me to get accustomed to it.
Days to not look at him and shout in anger and frustration.
Because why do they get to be like that and I can’t.
Yet when I do get accustomed, he is gone.
Gone like he was never there, and is replaced with her
The ‘normal’, yet unfamiliar face staring back at me.
Dead, soulless eyes.
Eyebags for days.
Sporting the same defeated look I do.
And I don’t know whether I should burst into tears,
Because finally, it’s kinda normal.
And yet, the look she gives me makes me feel disgusted.
I don’t like her. And yet I am glad.
Glad she’s back, and I’m normal.
But I’m still in that void, a dark void.
Filled with unopened Barbie dolls and new soccer balls.
I’m still chained to that void. Unable to move.
The strangers pulls me to him, but I am tired, tired.
Too tired to move, or eve breathe by the time he gets close to me. She drags me back, but I claw away, or at least try to.
I can never put up a good fight.
The days I get pulled like a game of tug of war,
Are days I fee like I will vomit.
Yet I don’t despise them, no matter how much it hurts. At least they are there in the mirror and I am not alone.
It’s the days I am left in the middle, all alone, that it feels like
I am sinking and that mud is filling my lungs.
It gets hard to breathe, and I feel like every inch of my strength is zapped.
As I try to look for him and her.
I’d rather vomit, than be alone.
Being alone is scary,
Not seeing them staring back at me in the mirror.
It’s terrifying.
There are days when it becomes too much and all I can do is cry.
Because the stranger is there when I wanted her to be there.
Or she’s there but I wanted him there.
And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t do anything about the sensation I feel
Of wanting to shed my own skin, because it doesn’t look right.
The parts are different.
No matter how much I cry, I can’t do anything about it.
Because it’s not ‘normal’.
But what exactly is normal?
I don’t know.
All I know I is that often times I wake up with a stranger in the mirror, and other times with a
familiar, yet odd figure.
But nothing is more terrifying than waking up and neither is there.
Because if they’re not there, what am I?
I would rather feel like vomiting when I stare at the mirror,
Than feel like I am being drowned by mud.
Hopefully one day I can muster up a real smile to whoever is staring back at me.
And we become friends.
Seventeen
they will never have you like this again
pretty and fresh
empty stomached, open palm
you are adventurous
having been nowhere
drunk on life
but cannot buy a beer
they will write songs about you
and wide eyed you will listen to them
eat what they give you from their hands
make their little a lot
their nothings into somethings
and in turn they will call you woman
to hide how much they like you as little girl
they will never want you like this again
pretty and easy
painfully, blindingly easy
seventeen
by Sariah Lake
Monkey Parts
I enter the room
Ten toes on sterile floors
The doctor is ready to examine me
I wrap my indecent parts in tissue
Hop on board the sailor’s ship
ready to go with the wind
He takes a part of my leg
From the knee to the ankle
“It’s got to go” he says
What “It’s all rotten.”
They’ve been experimenting with monkey parts
“I’ve got one just right for you”
What “skin tone… and all”
I don't want to be different, or more so in this society
He’s hunched over watching me twitch in fascination
I won’t feel the pain of his grip on my leg soon.
It will fade
I hold the catalogue above my head
“They are sacrificed for you”
He’s talking about the monkey parts again
“Pick one with a pretty name”
The man, the doctor, the one with the masked face
is out of my sight now
Standing behind my head
I’ve heard from my sisters the process is painless
I’ve listened to them howl in their sleep at night
It’s time for me to go now, and
when I awaken, I’ll have my monkey parts
And he will have profited
by Fowsia
Fearfully and Wonderfully... Dysphoric
I look in the mirror
And see the buzzcut of a lost daughter
Stubble gripping her chin
That sinful fruit wedged in her throat
Choking her
She gasps
Each uttered syllable cracking and aching
Escaping her lips
Shoulders broadening with repugnance
Tear-soaked calloused hands
Gripping a chest that never grew
Skin hardening
Atop the development of bones
A structure that can never be undone
Becoming an abomination before her eyes
Stiffening of her genitals
She desperately hides them away
Dark and thick hair grows down her once
smooth legs
Encasing them in shame
A body matures and morphs before her
Swelling of confusion and bitterness within
her
I gaze in the mirror
I’m empowered as
I see the most recent incarnation of a story
with no ending
He begins to slip away
Each day she becomes
More visible
More real
More tangible
I’m empowered by her will
Not to live
But to thrive
She is alive
by Rae Lee