sometimes i feel like i’m two creatures caught
b
e
n
e
a
t
h
skin
sharing one body.

my tongue rough- sandpaper, broken glass, too many curses
while the lips around it burn with apologies
fleshy brooms sweeping up the messes
of another woman.

i feel like there are two animals
each fighting for their right to shine through
they’re voracious in this battle— it surprises me that their clawstalonssteeth don’t break through the thin expanse of flesh to the outside.

i have two women living within my skull
one wildroughfighting— slinging glasses and insults.
face paint, bones and bottle trees, fire and ash
wet pine needles under bleeding feet.
the biting creature who leaves bruises on the lips of men.
the warrior, Artemis. laughdancing through flames.
a bear, a wolf, a cat, a bird.
animal in nature.

the other fights with words.
elegant, gentle, soft, break able-- everything the other
cannot afford to be.
goddess of the hearth, she feeds her comrades like children
keeps fires stocked with woods
and binds bleeding arms.
this woman carries pitchers of water
writes sweet letters to missing friends
and opens her soul to many lovers.

am I some crude splice of these creatures?
am I a ******* of these mothers— each passionate
one biting, brackish tides, slow moving rivers, still ponds
the other a warm, clean bath?
am I both simultaneously, or am I wearing one face while the other
watches behind mine eyes?

I am the moon—
full and loving, dark and hiding
and something in between.

yeah, that sounds about right.
something in between.

I can imagine

myself as a midwife or a medicine woman—
waking early
               wandering
the wooddesertmountain
with bad-*** boots & a patchy coat, pockets filled with rosemary and crystals
driving an old truck that smells of rolled cigarettes and gasoline
drinking hot tea out of a mason jar.

i see all of this & I wonder where this image will land me.
   Portland in the fall?
Nevada in the Winter?
                              Colorado? Montana?
But I need the trees.
My power is in the mountains.
Or maybe it is in the moon—and her face isn’t bound to the side of the mountain

i need the howl of coyotes, the smell of pine, the sound of running water over rocks, cold air, wind.
i crave this to the center of my
bones.

i want to dance with fire women, sing air songs, pray to the earth, bathe in the water, and
speak with the
spirit mother & the red father that binds all of these together in a chaotic harmony i will never understand.

i need to paint my body with the stain of poke berry and

run, foot against stone, against decaying leaves.

there is a savage within me
that needs to run free

that needs to bark at the moon and breathe clean air.

i am homesick

or maybe just
                      sick
laying in my bed— which really isn’t mine

wishing i was in a house

that doesn’t feel the same

wishing for a place that never wanted me in the first place

where ghostlaughter of
girlchildhood
                    floats
around my head
the fumes of nostalgia
make me sick

and i feel pathetic
because i need my mom

the problem with dorm rooms
is that there are hundreds of
people
se     p        ar        at   ed
by paper-thin
                     walls
never interacting
only existing simultaneously
(which, is a cosmic interaction if you think about it.)

sometimes I lay in my bed
face against a cold paper wall
and I
think: what are these other people doing?

in this awkward layout of beds and desks
in the earlylate hours of the nightday
are some

sleeping                                    frantically working

drunk in their beds                   laying frustratingly awake

awkwardly *******          awkwardly ignoring the awkward *******

having cramped ***        sleeping in the lounge to avoid said *** being had

crying and homesick                  consoling a homesick friend

too high to sleep                       too exhausted to be awake

or are some just as awake as I, wondering sleepily, what I am doing on the other side of the wall?

If ever I thought I was
worthless
useless
an empty vessel to hold the blame of the world, I was ignorant.

In the shadow of others I did not realize I was outgrowing the limited social garden bed of my ‘friends’ and companions. Friends would be an overstatement and a title many of them have never and will never earn. As a Scorpio my trust is not easily gained, and one lost, it is gone forever. Something in me, though, always forgave, but kept the trespasses against my trust cataloged, loaded, waiting to fire across my synapses is self destruction.

If ever I took your interest as a sign of friendship, I was a fool.
If ever I opened my heart to you, if ever I extended an almost maternal hand to you I was an idiot.

My body has been run ragged with its attempts at pleasing all and apologizing for its darker nature. My narcissism has become a survival mechanism that I once thought needed you.
My soul is weary of your needy hands, your open-bird mouth that I keep feeding more and more of my soul. Compassion has an end with me. In this game of survival, I will always be the fittest and you’ve stopped entertaining the animal within me.

I am worth so much more than being drained of my entirety. I am manifest energy as you are, as the earth is. Like the Earth my resources have been tapped and I can give no longer. Like the Earth I shall strike with ground shattering vengeance.

If ever I thought friendship was giving you everything for nothing in return, I was blind, for I am a Goddess as you are. I am a Goddess as you are a God, and your meager offerings of passing interest and constant need are insufficient. My inner patriarch has fed of your male-centric patterns of thought, and the women of my past lives are too loud in protest for this to continue.

I deserve much more than “friends” like you.

& most of all

If ever I thought my thighs were a sufficient reason for me to hate myself, if ever I thought they were an excuse for you to disrespect me, then I was a *****.
Because you are an *******.
And my body is rad

Read the Printed Word!

It is liberating and overwhelming

(to the point of
hot
tears)

to know how long I have been letting people drag my body through hot coals

while denying their abuse only because

letting them mistreat me
was only a way to

mistreat
my
    self

But as I have stopped hurting myself, I have become aware that
while I dare anyone to try to hurt me— I say this with a fire glint in my eye--
that I have been opening myself to the worst of people.

I am seeing myself in a better light—

I am powerful
I am beautiful
I am sacred
I am deserving
I am independent
And I don’t need people who I never really needed in the first place.

I’ve gone nineteen years sacrificing myself and it cannot go on. I will not let it go on. My consciousness is shifting, my inner self is awakening and stretching its muscles.

Vomiting up this cancerous, petulant, bone-blackening self loathing, cutting out this metastasizing inability to love myself, is painful.

It is the worst sort of agony
{and my body can take a lot of hell}

but when have I ever shied from pain?

rage has a way of awakening
the sacred fiery feminine within me
i suppose i should be accepting of flippant
dismissals and easily broken
plans(promises)

after all, it is what is expected of my gender—
to be silently accepting
to be smiling and forever forgiving
to be blind to your *******.

but I’m not that kind of *****.

the waters of many rivers flow in my veins
over the rocks and thorns that are growing inward in my inner darkness
wise and warrior women of my past lives swim in these brackish tides and they
are having none of your **** today

there is a predator that hunts in the base of my skull
that loves to feed on

boys {I would say ‘friends’ but none of you are deserving of that title}
like
you

through heavy breaths and gasps between too hot sobs this creature is released
and it reminds me
with the worst of pain
that i
am stronger than you
that i
am stronger than anything within your petty soul

we’re all made of energy and mine is too bright to be diminished by the likes of you

while i feel worthless and want to destroy myself
{because the easiest way not to feel
is to bring blood,
to bring forth ribs,
and cheek bones, and burns—— for the longest while I thought the fault lied within myself, that I was worthless and disposable, but now I see that I’ve only been attracted to the weaker breed of human because you are easy to manipulate. You were stupid enough to consider my compassion a license to abuse my over giving heart}

this animal keeps me in line, holding my hands within its claw riddled appendages
tight enough to bring blood, holding me still until my cries turn into war songs
my frantic heart beats into the sound of war drums.
my tears become paint streaking my face, readying me for another battle.

the scorpion ever present in me rises, barb dripping with the poison
my tongue would love to lay into your psyche

but you aren’t worth my words.

my words are my livelihood and nothing i could say could
every arouse any interest nor care from such a small minded individual as yourself
whose ambitions are the small fractions of debris beneath my scarred feet.

in this holy and reverent cold I thought I needed the warmth of companions, but I realized I was skinning myself raw to cover others who would only ***** out the flame keeping me alive.
my heart thrives in this harsh season and the skeleton of the scorpion comes alive in solitude.

the warrior woman within me is reborn this night.
she has watched my neglect and has pulled me into her armed embrace
and tells me through stoney and unforgiving eyes

that you were never worthy of my radiance