i gave you my heart
more times than i can
count

each time you looked
at it, in your
hand

you didn't understand
or care what you
had

temp
         tempo
                    tempor
                                  ary
                                       temporar
                                                         y
                                                         temporary
                                                                           r
                                                                              a
                                                                                  r
                                                                                   o
                                                                                     p
                                                                                      m
                                                                                        e
                                                                                          temporary

redskin, cheekbones, upturned eyes
you call me names, pick apart my features
there's much for you to analyze

none of it good enough
even as you slit my belly and take my skin
you think me rough

wearing me like a hood you become
Pocahontas, Matoaka, Indian Princess
you think the thrum of your blood is the sound of a drum

you consume me, trick yourself
Redskin Princess

he disappointed
just like he had
before

and so
she pulled the earth
over herself and
slept

he looks at me
carnal grin in place
with essence of small death
smeared across his face

but these wild nights
existing only in my mind's eye
were nothing more
than the ephemeral kind

vanishing when i wake
these wild dreams and created nights
leave nothing but an ache
in the space left by his flight

we have been dry for years
our skin has grown cracks
deep fissures
unhealing and unending

our bodies resembling the desert
that gave birth to us
that nurtured us
gave us her fruit,
her sparse green,
her shallow,
disappearing pools

but still
our throats beg
for water,
for a drop
of mercy from the sky -

we croak and cry and beg
with chests heaving,
tears the only mercy to come
for petrichor lost

we have been dry
for years
no mercy
no end

crowned with lighting,
she is a tempest of a woman -
wrapped in the storm that gave way to
her creation

thunder is her call,
her name,
her warning,
her crown is her weapon of choice

(there is nothing more powerful
than a woman who knows what she wants)

nails tipped in quicksilver,
her voice is thunder,
her eyes are stars hand-picked
by the goddess herself,
her hair is the deepest black
of the storm from which she burst forth

(there is nothing more powerful
than a woman who knows her worth)

she is a woman wrapped in a storm,
crowned with lightning,
wearing her refusal to apologize
in the ferocity of her smile

(there is nothing more powerful
than a woman who knows what she wants)