You know what?
*******.
I may have liked your small ****.
But you're still a ******* *****.
Words speak volumes.
Or the lack thereof.
I hope you read this and ******* *****.
You're gonna read this ten years from now.
And remember how I swallowed your kids.
You're gonna remember how I rode your ****.
You're gonna remember how I let you eat my ****.
You're gonna remember the four hour long ****** sessions spent inside me.
And I hope it makes you think how though you got inside me, you never really got inside.
You never even knew me.
You saw what I show everybody.
And if you really think that you ******* mattered,
Well, I'm not a liar.
Because ten years from now
I'll still ******* taste you on my lips.
And spit out the word fool.
Because I am a paradoxal universe.
But fool is how I feel.
All those talks felt so surreal.
You knew I was ****** from day one,
So why did you **** me?
Or, rather, why did I let you?
Why did you ask for deep meaning things?
Are you in to mind fuckery?
I hate that I can't take back the parts of me that I gave you.
And my chest hurts from thinking about you all the ******* time.
Leave my mind.
I'll never get back that time.
You jumped off the roller coaster ride.
Before you even won the prize.
But that really comes as no surprise.
I guess it's a let down, thinking I saw a different side.
Seeing in different light.
Lessons are learned from everything hurtful we try to hide from our minds.
Just ******* stop already.
Because I can't move in halves.
I can't breathe in halves.
I can't be in halves.
I need a whole friendship, if anything.

my mother has blue eyes
but I'm still a ******
my mother has blonde hair
but I'm still a ******
my daddy is black as night
but I'm still a *******
my daddy has ***** curls
but I'm still a *******

I call this hash tag the struggle
because to be biracial is nothing
more
because to be biracial is nothing
less
than a struggle
to find who I am
to find who I should be
to find who I'm supposed to be

i really wish they were the same person
i really wish you understood hash tag the struggle
but you don't
and you won't

so stop telling me about my
good hair
and stop telling about my high
yellow skin
and stop telling me my parents have the fever
and stop staring at me when I
walk in
and stop trying to guess which parent is black
and stop trying to guess which parent is spanish

No

I'm not Spanish.

No

I don't speak Spanish.

No

You CANNOT touch my hair

Yes, my nose is in the air
Of course I think I'm the ****
Because I live my life trying to be better than women who are dark skinned ...with something I was born with
...out of my control
Of course I try to flaunt my plush lips around the white girls who get botox
who then become the have nots because I've stolen all the brothas hearts from the city and the boondocks

See you don't even know me
but you think these are my goals

see I call this hash tag the struggle because nobody understands the trouble in being whole
when you're given two halves
that don't match to patch up one soul
and you're born into a ****** up mess still expected to know

and they tell you to ignore them all
be yourself
race should not define you
but I can't even fill out two ******* boxes on a standardized test
because you are only allowed to check ONE to describe you

hash tag
**TheStruggle

someone's in the next room over
having *** while we
are weeping
what a way to mark the occasion
the day my fingers found a wound
you let someone else doctor
it's upsetting see
the bible in drawer next to us
the way our hands still
fit together
like the torn halves
of a love letter
the way you got
all dressed up like the rain
and how we couldn't tell
the difference in the shower
it was the longest hour and a half
spent crying
the hot water wouldn't give up
so why should we
right?
even though it was scalding
neither of us touched the ****
we knew this was supposed to hurt
your hair
a black mess against my shoulder
my fingers
oil in the vinegar of your hands
our bodies
the great divide
all the sobbing
a river runs through it
without the courage
to carry or **** us
so we step out
and drip dry
down to a mute breakfast
composed of quiet
and last nights liquor
as we came back in
there were people in our room
at first i thought them detectives
dissecting things
to see who had died here
i had forgotten this
was a hotel
and they were only
cleaning up after us
i wanted to stop them
plead
that the sheets were still perfect
that if they clean the bathroom
no one will know
what happened here
someone has to remember
"please
i know
these cigarette burns
by name
i will bury the faucet
let me take the tub
i don't care how
if i have to
i will drag it home by hand"

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

I took the left path where hydrangeas grew and sleepy primroses under woods, edged shady trees.
The empty stream ran quietly dry
With grass cuttings piling high.
If one peeped, one would find tiny creatures
To cast a sparkle here and there, a delight.
So on tip-toe, with sandels bent
Up high I reached to take
The plastic fairy as she twirled a pirouette
In a theatre made by chance.
Reflected in a silver mirror intwinned with ivy branch
A mottled foal tends his dreams and Chrismas robin chirps.

My brother took the right hand path where the trees grew fruit
Ripe berries from the gooseberry bush bulged their prickles.
Dangling from hawthorn now a cowboy with a hat
Looking for his fellow Indian with the yellow back sack.
Sheep gather in a hollow, dark, protected from the sun
And Mr toad, now lost of paint, has turned a bit glum.

And so we leave our woodland friends and travel up the *****
Winding round the rose bed and goldfish where they float.
Then up we climb, the middle route, to jump the pruned clipped
Hedge.
The lawn divided in two halves, a contemporary taste.

Now we're nearly at that place where if one was to turn
Could see down across the land
To the sea and sand.
Of all the beauties that I've known
Nothing beats this Island home.

Love Mary x




My grandfather’s retirement bungalow was in Totland Isle of Wight.
It was named Innisfail meaning ‘Isle of Ireland’.
Behind, the garden led down to magical and delightful to children who came as visitors. My grandfather would prepare this woodland with some suitable surprises.
The garden and woodland deserved its own name and in retrospect
Is now named ‘Innislandia’ to suggest a separate, mysterious land.
Beyond the real world.
In the poem A Country Lane on page 8 the latched gate is the back gate to my grandparent’s garden and bungalow in Totland as above.

I wonder how long
it took me to understand that time
changes like everything else.

Because I remember when 1 minute seemed like a long time
to be stuck on time out, facing the corner of a whitewashed room
and yet 6 hours felt like no time at all
when I had a five page paper to write
and the city was cold
and my eyes were drying.

And with you
6 months
feels like a monument

As if the last half year is not just time,
not just minutes and hours and days ticked by
but also gold, alabaster, silver and diamond
it feels like something I would type up
in Helvetica Bold on expensive cardstock
as if to say
I DID THIS
and
SHE DID THIS
when many people,
such as myself
were whispering and shouting that it was impossible

And you’re still an enigma
for my time
because 5 minutes is a marvel
and 6 months is monumental
but forever
feels like no time at all.

You are some capricious catalyst
of continuum
and constancy.

You change everything all at once,
and always when I least expect
to be hopping on a train
or hike a mountain for 5 hours in the rain
or dance
or make love and have it mean something too
or be told I am special
and believe it too.

You read an old book
smelling the gum Arabic,
that ancient mix of grass and vanilla
breathing the short, hushed breaths I did
and I rejoice
with your every discovery
smile
with your every treasure
and wince
with your every tear
and there you are again
reaching across, around, and over time
to show me that you are there
doing what I did
loving what I loved
all over and once again.

And here we are
with half a year.

I will pretend that I did not remember it
and make you laugh when I say so
because I want you to learn
that me forgetting you is humorous
and ridiculous
and impossible.

Because time can change
and cause change
but never to all the empty spaces
filled with soot and dusk
which you washed out
and filled with sun and fire.

Here I am whole again
after a half
of a year
and it is all because of you.

Some things will always change
just like some times will always change
like the 3 minutes that grow when on the screen of a microwave
or the 6 weeks which stretch when spent apart from you.
But 6 months is something solid
something real
and can grow to 12, 24, 48 and on
but it will still be there
still reminding me
(and you)
that I did this
and will keep doing it
keep stacking halves
upon our two person whole.

They say that we're all just halves
Of what we are supposed to be...
But tonight, I am whole.


-- Eleanor

Mine are grapefruit halves
Bitter
Salted
Easing the transition into awake
Perfect juicy handfuls
But I know girls with cantalopes
Seems to me you'd need a map
To navigate those
And hands like
Melonballers just to make an impression
Raspberry, Blackberry, Cherry *******
A fruit salad of peaches
And mangoes and apples
It's a world made for peelers
And paring knives
I world where a sweet tooth
Can thrive

We plant our women in orchards
Cultivate them in careful
Organized rows
With expert farmers and the latest fertilizers
Leading them on
Into ripeness
Harvested at just the right time
So that no man ever need know hunger

Were both the same
Competitive to the death
The most stubborn around
Extremely caring, a hidden
Sense to help others
A mystical ability to always
Be there for people at the
Moment they need it

We’ve been friends and
Like most friends argue
Like no tomorrow, but
Were mirrored halves
Saying were nothing
Alike but almost the
Same person on the
Inside

Mirrored halves, they
Reflect the same and
Sometimes look the same
But arnt always the right
Thing, people say your
Suppose to find your
Other half….

But does a mirrored half
Of you the same do the same
As the other half?

Two humans, two halves
Distant but never alone
Worlds apart but embraced as one
Things will find a way to connect
Time will correct itself
We’ve just got to wait
One of these days you’ll find me
I'm waiting in anticipation
Our sparks will ignite
A flame will ignite at first touch
The flame that guides the way
It can’t be long now, other half
Counting down the days
until we’re whole again.

I'm being torn in two
My two halves are fighting again

The good side
The Mormon girl
She wants to be righteous
She wants to do all that she is supposed to
Stay on the path
Be worthy
Be active in the church
Go to BYU
Meet a return missionary
Get married in the temple
Start a family
Have five or so kids
Grow old
Stay in the church
And die
Knowing she raised a good Mormon family

And then there's the bad side
The rebel
She wants to do want she really wants
She wants piercings
She wants tattoos
She wants to be radical
Live her own life
Without consequences
From those Above
Go to college...elsewhere
Meet someone like her
Get married on the beach
(Or not at all!)
Maybe have a family
Couple kids
And live her days
Rebelliously
Enjoying her days
Not caring for tomorrow

And each side
Have their ups and downs

So

       Why

                 Not

                          Both?

And that's where my struggle lies
And how to combine the two
Nearly opposite sides
Into one
Imperfect whole
And that's what I'll be doing
For the rest of my days
Until I die
After I die
Is combine my two halves
And make one
And make Me