The Elders took me to church
and planted me on the back row
to squirm and fidget
while they filled my head with stories
of women like Delilah,
          who seduced Sampson
          and used her body
          to weaken a warrior,
and Bathsheba,
          whose nakedness upon her own roof
          made David falter
          from king to killer,
but told me that I will lose
value after I grant a man
permission–should he even ask–
to lay his hands on me,
as if the priest and prosecutor
could preach purity
into my dry bones
and watch me rise up before them
without ever having realized
the power I possess
within my own rib cage.

*"And the serpent said unto the woman,
'You will surely not die."

I want to know
what it feels like
for reconciliation
to wash over
my fault lines.
Take my cracks
and paint them
with gold.
Let me glimmer,
                   gleam,
                           and glow
redemption.
Illuminate my mistakes
and let my skeleton
frame out a museum
of triumph

It's hard to
explain
how it feels
when you
realize that
your place
is really just the
absence
of a place.
To make a door,
you must first
reduce
part of the wall
to nothing more
than a hole.
Maybe they just
need me to be
framework

After a hurricane,
the air is different
and so reverberates
the sea. After a hurricane,
the water is dense.
I lay floating—
carried by salt—
thinking about weight
and the lack thereof.

After the hurricane,
nothing is right.
The weight of my body
on the waves
does not compare
to the weight
on my chest
in your
absence.

The duvet is disheveled—
hanging onto the mattress,
half draping the ebony stained
floor. Admiral Blue walls are illuminated
by two brass pendant lights
that have sprouted from the ceiling
and are growing off of
the bitter ends of
the anchor rode.

My attention is pulled down
by the locket
weighing from my neck
as the silver braid bites
with chill and I stay on the bed
and focus on that brightwork
laying on my chest and
I keep trying to ignore
the far corner of the room
by the vanity because
I keep trying to ignore
your blubber-skinned suitcase
painted in barnacles, sitting on the floor,
mouth wide open, like it is just there waiting
to swallow you whole and
spit you back out at the next harbor—
I swear, I think it is trying
to rename you Jonah.

Tonight, like every other night before
that you have stepped from my deck
to throw yourself into the sea,
I will find myself,
after the moon has risen,
after the tide has shifted,
and after the town has fallen asleep,
wandering aimlessly down the hand paved
roads that weave along the port to sit
with *your life, your love, and your lady.

Girl says no.
Girl says I said no.

Boy says nothing with his mouth but
moves with hands that say let me start my
cross-examination of the witness and
looks at her with confused eyes that say
may I remind you, ma’am, that you are under
oath. Would you like to change your answer?

Girl says no, I said no.
She is jury,
she is judge,
she is verdict.
She is gavel banging against sound block
on a case closed.

Boy still says nothing but sheds
his clothes like last season’s skin
and when his jeans hit the floor
they say Your Honor, I am asking
you to recuse yourself.
He is still confused because
buying dinner is just a more polite way
of buying a ******* her knees
so he wrongfully believes that
his libido has the right
to stand in as a judge in appeals court
to overturn her ruling.

This is the only trial that she will see
because prosecution does not want
to press charges with a case that they do not believe
will result in a guilty verdict and ****
is still widely accepted as
just a he-said-she-said civil case.



*According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports out of every 100 rapes, 32 get reported to the police, 7 lead to an arrest, and 3 are referred to prosecutors.

I am standing in the waiting room
of the Coronary Care Unit
and I am counting because numbers
are the only things feeling real to me today.
Ten steps from the door. Nine hours into the day.
Eight times I have already said ******* under my breath.
Room number seven. Six ways that a heart can step out of rhythm.
Five people in a family that might soon be reduced to four.
Three cardiologists that cannot tell me what the hell has happened.
Rumor has it that two of those six arrhythmias are fatal. You have had one.
One door separating me from one person
laying in one room with one ventricle
that does not, will not, and cannot
pump.

We all carry someone inside of us—
someone that climbs up our spine and sleeps
on a hammock stretched across our rib cage.
Carry me and day after day
I will be your second heart,
beating outside of your chest,
reminding you of all the reasons you have
to cut yours out.