Her hands are strong enough
To lift up even the mightiest man’s spirits
Callused from her endless work
But still always outstretched
To embrace those nearest to her

Her fingertips delicate enough
To make the same man
Believe that liquid fire exists
As they dance their way across his skin
After he’s made his way into her heart

Her legs steady enough
To carry society’s standards like air
It’s no wonder these legs
Will one day be the gateway to life
For future warriors and peacemakers alike

Never be ashamed to be a woman
Because every man came from our womb
We are just like men but with the fire of life
Raging so strong inside of us
That we cannot keep it contained inside

I – circular formations slide behind my eyelids and leave me dizzy, swinging like a snake in a tree. temptation comes to mind and thinking of the garden of eden, i wonder this: does it matter that it was eve? did it make any difference after all? do we really delude ourselves to believe that without eve the apple would have remained uneaten, and the world untainted by sin? i picture myself growing from a man’s dissected rib, only ever a fraction of the life i was stemmed from. snipped like a cutting and grown into a potted flower. created to belong. not to nature, as i would like, but to a man. do you think that snake just told eve to eat the apple? or did he tell her more. perhaps he said the taste of the apple would fill the empty chasm in her chest where identity should lie. perhaps he said the apple could allow her to be a person in her own right. and can we blame her? for biting into knowledge? a woman who was born into ownership dared to taste power. and we stomped her into history as the villain.

II – i become tired of this space where birds can no longer fly. i want to be free. i don’t want to have a body, i want to float around in space as a ghost. shame is such a human emotion. i want to bleed in technicolour. i want to be free.

III – and so i sit here eyes sombre and cold, and i stare out into the candy coloured skies. the clouds look so close i could almost taste them if it weren’t for the blood in my mouth. and the green of the trees calls to me in a language i don’t speak anymore. somehow i see their words echoed across the skyline. calling me home. i know it’s too late. i go back inside to fight the tumbleweeds in my head. It only hurts me to remember.

IV – i look down at my hands. for a fleeting moment i hate my petite body, and i want to be a monster with spikes and huge sharp teeth. i dismiss the thought, lay down on my bed, and dream of creation. i dream of being the ocean’s daughter. fierce and strong with salt-hardened hands and strong swimmers legs. born of the sea, running to the trees who call to me. it won’t happen now, but i can dream. i wake, and see the sky shouting in pastels to me and the trees echoing in muted jewel tones. i run out to them and for a split second I feel alive,  but it passes. but it always passes.

At times when I'm alone
I think about Simone.
I think about her poetry
and how much her locks have grown,
I wonder if she is still healing
and I pray for her to any messiah.
Simone is just a girl mistreated by a cruel world.
I hope Simone is praying and I hope that it is heard,

I hope that God is female because
praying to a man would reignite her pain.

My eyes closed,
I say to myself
Someone must have placed a heavy metal object on the top of my stomach,
not knowing I'm a human who feels PAIN!
And that person in my mind keeps telling me
that he has kept it gently there.
I say, 'Hey! It's a metal object and it hurts anyway!'
Gathering up some energy,
I go to my table and sit in a chair
Skimming through the pages of my diary,
I try to write a poem,
when suddenly something kicks me from the inside,
keeps making me suffer until I stop.
No wonder I was trying to write about PERIOD CRAMPS!
There you go again!
These cramps are not just pain to my body
but some reminders that keep sneering at me saying,
"No, you can't do that!"
Believe me,
Sometimes they are worse than this society that reminds me of my boundaries.
Anyway, five days pass by
and then I say goodbye.
Seeing my grin,
It decides to remind me,
"My pal, don't you worry
Cause I will be back again."

a man you could miss for two days straight,
wouldn’t miss you for a year

Lounging, today, on Your back porch
I saw America's men
Holding their tiki torches
Toward all they had been

I saw all of America's men
Wade angrily out into the icy upper bay waters
Toward all they had been
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters

Wading out into the icy waters
Holding their tiki torches
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters
Lounging, half-drowned, on Lady Liberty's back porch

A blank page invites opportunity;
searches for a voice.
You fear her words,
so you sculpt her before she finds them.
She does not ease like clay, moulded
with warm, purposeful hands, but
bends; stiff and rigid.

You fold her into something pretty
or delicate or curious.
Only then can you gaze upon each deliberate
crease and see your work is done;
when a paper crane sits upon a dusty
shelf. Pleasant, polite,
quiet – yours.