Poetry
poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence ~ Audre Lorde
Breaded Chicken Fillet with Egg Recipe
Trigger warnings: implied eating disorder, body shaming
—
One: boneless chicken breast–spineless as you are. You laugh at the shadow of my reflection and yet you loathe yours; you simply cannot bear the sight of your own face dawning upon you. How does it feel to be wretchedly cruel, to the world and to yourself? Two: marinate Italian style. Ride the yacht you cannot afford and come home to your two-storey apartment paid with dirty money. Speak a language you cannot fathom. Call me when you need me, between the lines of “what does it all mean?”; let me ask you the same: how did you mean it all? Ridicule me, please, for not believing in a god that let your most beloved pass as though their existence were disposable. How can you live with it all, carrying the weight of your words like twisting a dull knife pierced into my wound? I make it all about me, don’t I? (I do, I do, I do) If I make this about you, will you forgive me for my untamed wit they all keep chasing me for? Three: eggs. The first crack in the shell is in the image of you crumbling beneath the lightest of pressure. The unfamiliar has always been daunting, hasn’t it? I wonder if you think of me now, between the lines of the poem you so desperately try to comprehend, yet it remains unbeknownst to you. Where has your brain gone amidst all the facade that is your beauty? Does it hide beneath all your grandeur? Four: garlic. Freshly minced to perfection. You do have an eye for it, don’t you? Every crevice of my existence is a sin for yours. All that I am was a pitiful cry for help; the girl meant to be at the back of the photograph—were their preening eyes enough to make a saint out of you? Serve on a sizzling plate. Hot and scorching and burning through your bones. It was debilitating to be known by you. The love I know of now at the touch of my fingertips is a far cry from the grasp of your cold hands. Let me devour what I deserve for it is all mine—none of the food in your mouth is ever worth digesting. I am sorry for choking you with a love you never deserved. I have learned my lesson to not swallow things I cannot fit in the roof of my mouth. All of it now is teeth and gums–a vision you would surely die for. Wallow in the limelight of my glory, would you? The pleasure is all mine.
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.
BLOOD SUCKING SUCCUBUS
You’ve stuffed my heart with empty words
Fatten and full, ripe for picking.
You’ve eaten the hearts of all those before me
But you won’t eat mine.
You’ve bitten, nibble, sucked,
No more than a mouthful
But you won’t fill your belly on me.
Find someone else to roll over,
Crack open their ribs and feast on their soul
Fill your desolate tank of broken hearts,
But you won't get mine.
Not over my dead body
Or my blood-fattened heart.
PENT UP
I wanna rip every fingernail out from beneath
my skin and stick metal screws in their place
I wanna throw punches through a wall
with the temperament of a white man
as I watch the nail slow jam their
way further into my finger, so I’ll
Have a reason.
All I need is a reason.
I wanna slice open my skin and pull back
Each layer of fat and a muscle, rummage
Through each tendon until I find the veins I’ve never seen
glow through the first layer of my skin
And pluck at my veins until my heart stops,
So I’ll have a reason.
All I need is a reason.
I wanna rip my jaw clean off my skull
then people will finally fucking listen to me.
MARIGOLDS
“You’re worth more than marigolds” but less than your shoes. Footprints left on the petals of my skin and the roots of my mind. Brittle and bruised, picked and used by you. Absent of any light or hope, I’ll wait for you. After all you put me through, I’ll wait for you. You planted yourself next to my self-worth and shouted “Pick me, pick me”. As soon as I took you back, you bruised me. A wilted flower in a pretty garden, no one will want me.
I. won’t. wither.
When my husband turned 70
They gave him a cane carved
with the body
of the red-winged sparrow.
I was left
with dried lily petals
melting into my tongue
as I peeled
hardened skins of summer
grapes beneath my fingernails.
When my husband turned 75
He brought a dancing girl home.
Her name sounded like
"Red-tipped carnation of the West Wind"
She plucked the seeds out of
spring strawberries
with slender twin fingers.
When my husband turned 80
He filled my bowels with
cheap white wine
and forced me to sleep with
alley-way cats.
I shared a feast
of rotting salmon and fishbone
with the blind black
tiger.
When my husband died
Our son carried me upon his back
to the Forest of One Thousand Whispers
He set me beneath the eldest oak
Kissed my spotted cheek and
bade me a tearless farewell.
Still,
My legs entwine
with the roots of the
great Oak, my fingers take the flight
of ten thousand cerulean
swallows
My lips form the
babbling brook of the east meadow
as my eyes turn to
seaglass
beneath unturned stones.
I. won't. wither.
Sacred ground
What is sacred ground?
Is it a ground steeped in rituals —
poured libations penetrating earth
finding routes to ancestors and memory?
Is it a place that holds the dead
or once-dead?
Is it a place where spirits walk
haunted by the irreverent nature
of those with flesh and bone ?
Is this body a sacred ground?
Does it remain sacred if others
have exploited,
treated it like a mining ground
emptied it of treasures,
planted seeds of death –
Left it hollow?
Is this body still hallowed
if no one is there to say a prayer
for its healing?
(my tongue has found no language yet for healing words)
If ancestors don’t hear it’s cries
to find their way back
to this body
to gift it flight
and
grounding.
Is this body still sacred ground if it’s not seen?
My body in your mouth
Baby fat:
To my mother you say:
she cute eeh,
watch har likkle chubby cheeks
and chunky thighs
I could just love har up.
I coo and smile, not understanding.
Pickney tings:
To my mother you say:
yuh never breastfeed har enough,
look how she look malnourished,
mawga bad bad; look how she tough?
I look down at skinny legs,
skinny, strong legs,
skinny, strong, brown legs
that let me run from boys who want to touch what’s not theirs
that lift me up into trees that girls
shouldn’t climb
that make me keep in step with
my granddad’s long strides.
I was confused.
Force ripe:
To my mother you say:
pickney nuh fi get breast so soon
smaddy must a feel dem up;
go get har checked out –
mark my words.
I look down at the bumps
raised higher than welts
nipples protruding beyond the swells
my tears rolled off them
like waterfalls over mountains.
I do not understand my body’s changing
I do not want this change
I squeeze them like pimples
they do not burst
but keep growing like
ripened fruits upon my chest.
I do not understand this change in my body.
Grown:
To me you say:
When di baby due? Di belly look round eeh.
A hope a nuh girl pickney yuh going have –
dem gi too much trouble fi raise.
I look down at my belly
empty of womb –
the site of life
and death.
I look at its softness
the rolls that shake
when I belly laugh
the joy that bubbles up and can’t be contained
the rolls that shake when I dance
when no one’s looking
the rolls that lovers hang on
to for dear life
when riding that high wave.
I smile,
I understand.
my body
that holds me up
it brings me joy
and pain in equal measure
it is a source of beauty
and shame
But it deserves to be loved
every inch of it
deserves all the sweet
and empowering things to be whispered over it
etched on it like a mural.
I reach over to you
I part your lips,
gently at first
(you are surprised)
I put my fingers in
then my hand
I grip firmly on to your tongue
and rip my beautiful body from
your mouth
I understand:
my body has no home there –
there with its putrid lies.
I leave you tongue-less and bloody
grabbing at your throat
missing the way
my body used to sit in your mouth.
Happiness Hurts
They say happiness feels like the warmth of daylight seeping in through your skin. Embracing your bones, and turning your heart into a mushy puddle of delight.
They say happiness is yellow.
Bubbly and bright.
They say happiness smells like cookies and cupcakes, and a plethora of flowers blooming between the butterflies in your stomach.
They say happiness is the laughter and smiles you share with your loved ones.
Lingering. Heartwarming.
If so…
Then I never knew this thing called happiness at all.
To me, happiness felt like a dream trapped in a distant screen.
Like the reflection of the moon upon the still water surface.
Visible.
Impossible to touch.
Like scraping a rock with your nails desperate to feel.
Close.
Impossible to accomplish.
You will only be left with blood and mangled fingers.
You will only be left with an aching heart and a hollow chest.
How wretched.
It was merely another thing outside my grasp.
Exist to tempt.
Impossible to get.
by MG
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.
being a girl is a wasteland
I like being a girl But sometimes at night I try to remember what it was like To breathe without weight on my chest
I like being a girl
But sometimes at night
I try to remember what it was like
To breathe without weight on my chest
The weight of imposed motherhood
Imposed like a visitor to a house
The kind of visitor you don’t want to come in
But if they force themself in
It’s your fault
Because your house is a provocative colour
So you were practically asking for it
So there’s blood running down your legs
Could be nature or nurture
Nature of my body that has pain built in
Nurture of boys
Boys who will be boys
But not all of them
But nearly all of us
Or nurture of beliefs
That what’s between my legs
Says anything about my purity
Fuck purity
Stop associating femininity with purity
Why do we act as if femininity is this soft delicate thing?
When we all know it’s not
It’s a war you didn’t enlist to
A bad dream you don’t wake up from
It’s a wasteland where flowers aren’t allowed to grow
It’s obligation to hypothetical men and hypothetical babies
It’s playing a rigged game
Where your chromosomes rolled a double
So you lost before you even got to play your hand
It’s your body being deemed public property
By people who don’t know you
And being given dead flowers
By a boy who forgot you had hay fever
So you’re crying and you’re sobbing
And you’re screaming and you’re shouting
And you’ve lost your voice
When you didn’t have one to begin with
And all you have left is flowers and no say
When all you wanted was a wasteland and stinging nettles
So you could breathe easy
by Denise
Miles in my skin
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
It is the arcade tickets in blue that now look brown,
And the movie stubs, creased and torn in two
That let me know I was ever there with you.
I have created space in every wallet, every room
To make sure your things were never absent
To cherish our time spent.
Until ‘you’ meant someone new
And I would cry when I found I could create new spaces to fill,
Reminding me of the strength my hands had
To build new drawers and keep moving forward.
Some things I lost on my travels and I am even glad,
(Not having them makes me remember more)
To not carry much with me when I explore.
But tucked away, under thorns and brambles, as often as I can,
I look under them to see if I can find anything more to know about you.
Though you are galaxies away and I no longer see them in your eyes,
It is the moon that recalls our last goodbyes.
And it is a pity I have nothing else to remember that by.
by Hannah
“we’re not alone”
4.10.22
[ i experience ]
a restless synesthesia of sensations
my soul its own dimension
of loosely woven associations
And
nuance
sometimes i think i pay a little too much attention
my jaw perpetually clenched
strained by the daily omission
of ineffable prose
so today i embrace my sensitive observations
indulging in the union of all things
i notice what’s not necessarily there
i talk around and not through
i challenge claims of irrelevance
and forever hold
that “far-fetched” is a cowards favorite word
because yesterday i felt seafoam green
And
this room smells like winter
And
my skin squirms like earthworms
when i see bumpy trees
and that’s the only way i know how to put it
my love language is longform
i let my teeth tear away at the succulent flesh of a cherry
and savor it as i would a lover
picking their brain before reaching their core
the juice dripping down my lips as it fountains from their hips
a delicious mess
i don’t just take note
i see the universe in you
i think in words
i speak in pictures
i feel sounds like textures rippling through my veins
i walk backwards and run forwards
And
i am never satisfied
i am the consequence of an infatuation
prolonged
by a silver tongue
and resulting miscommunications
so it is in my nature not to be straightforward
pheromones released and a love drunk mistake
bore me:
a curse from the cosmos
an /enigma/
to the masses ;
[ [ a living, breathing retrograde
] ]
- A.
Midnight Morsel
Picking off the strawberries
From the chocolate cake
Eat them individually
Chewing up small bits of health
Throughout the entire week
The water jugs judge me
Sitting in the dark
When the light switch
Stands next to me
An arm’s reach away
Next to the jug
My body longs for water
Dragging my finger across
The rim of frosting
Rectangular slice
Licking my fingertip
Taking a deep breath
For the rich sweetness
Before closing the box for the night
Knotted
yet, moving with my left foot forward
images that scream magenta tints
this page, this page, may crumble,
fade,
catch fire!
something’s getting too close to the flame
the hairs on my skin are in a quarrel
debating on direction
I am chaotic when the sun floods
…think I’ve told you this before
disheveled when the moonlight ricochets
rather than, dissolve my fleshy membranes
i am a moon sucking, pine backbone, lightning cavity
thing
it, me, I, we
all at once, so much, out of so little…
if I were to ask it to go away
what if I were
by Paris Jessie
Recuperación
Do keep in mind,
you will never get to speak about
what you burned into me.
Like a spell, when you
cry out my name,
It will scorch your tongue.
and I will hear it.
I made it painfully clear
that I no longer wanted
to let you invade my skin.
The darkness you left inside me,
whispers softly in my head,
begging me to answer your call.
I will never wander so willingly
into your poisoned traps again.
And I vow never to let your eyes
fall on my face.
Remember when you breathe,
it’s because it’s my air you stole.
Yet, notice after everything you’ve done,
how effortlessly I move.
As if,
you were never there.
Slip back and hide into that
night when you tried to ruin me.
The shame will never hold me back.
And forever you will
only get silence from me.
this will only take a moment
there are times I hope I am like
no one else,
but myself.
Soak absorb and summit
prefer to devour the
shades that make me
leave me to it: crawl outside this
lukewarm body wall
and
nibble resuscitated melanin
for the record, my inner being seems
seldom inundated
leave me to it: drift back inside and caress
my own tenderness
with symphonies of honeysuckle,
moonlight, breached discovery
maybe, somersault on the bridge
of my nose
smell what I am made of
feel what I got going on
by Paris Jessie