My daddy—he once told me
don’t ever play with nuns
they’ll hit you with their rulers
it won’t be any fun

I snuck out of that prison
and now I’m on the run

Once freed from that schoolhouse
I sunbathed in the sun
I stayed out late, I went on dates
looking out for number-one

When I think of what I went through
of all the tired repressive lies
I keep running wise, in slick disguise
my purpose is renewed

Don’t ever let ‘em tell you
you can’t have any fun
If they preach that hackneyed drivel
grab some things and run
.
.
Songs for this:
Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) by Elton John & Dua Lipa
I'm Still Standing by Elton John

I used to know how to write about my body,
how to take this amalgamation of memory
and harness it into something beautiful
but somewhere along the lines I lost myself.

lately I have been hiccupping at the edge of a knife
nerves running rampant beneath my skin
nothing to say to this pain threating violence to this body.

I try to look grief in the eyes these days
but inside I am still that small fragile girl
wishing ripped hair follicles were the only thing
falling apart on this body.

But I have made a mess of not feeling
not writing, just running away from
the knife that begs to cut me open.

I have kept it so close to my chest
never wanting to see how this trauma
could exit so tragically
due to a single memory.

but here I sit, hand full of hair
blade to my forehead
wishing this childhood was
just a nightmare I could wake up from.

and the knife isn't real
but the memories still are
so still I sit
hands empty, chest aching
at all they have done to me.

take and take and take
this body that still after 29 years
doesn't feel like it belongs to me.

So I return
knife to paper
pen to paper
fingers to keys
wishing I could make something
beautiful
out of
my own
remembering.

I did not stop writing but I swallowed each word whole
Without remark, buried where I could not read them
Or myself. I could not stop having feelings
But I hid them away- spirited far- speechless
They spoke anyway. I tried to die. I did not.

I can't blame you, or anybody specifically
but I was afraid of what I was made of.
The thing that was growing- it was me,
wildly me, wild anima. Whirling and warming,
I threatened to metastasize. But I did not.

I only swelled and grew and hurt, really tried hard
to find a window, to make space, and a home.
Terrified the author and editor- no one will buy this.
And so I killed that thing. I cut it out, and discarded it.
No one noticed. The parade moved on. I did not.

I hid like a wounded fox. I turned myself inside out
away from light, from sound, and love, and trust-
I erased memories, wrote better endings, kept it easy.
And this suited many, but never myself. Because
You can't actually **** what grows. I did not.

There’s nowhere for me,
nowhere I can scream—
quietly, peacefully.
I can’t disturb,
the gentle, quiet Night.

These tears know, too—
They only know one home,
stuck deep inside.
They drown in the ocean,
wondering when they will
fly from my eyes.

The time comes.
I shake, I tremble.
My soul goes ragged—
with grief, with joy,
with guilt, with love,
with anger, with hope.
It’s wretchedly beautiful.

I raise my chin.
I shake, I tremble.
But only a crack
forms in the dam.
Only a stream
seeps into my lap.

I unhinge my jaw.
I shake, I tremble.
I try to *****
the full blue moon.
But not a sound disturbs,
the gentle, quiet Night.

I can’t hear myself.
But it's screaming.
It claws, it hungers,
it wants out.
But I’m not ready.

My heart has grown
too attached to the weight,
of this dead child
hiding inside me.

An ice floe made of gathered up snow
that fell over thousands of years:
The snow’s source water had achingly grown
from billions of sweat drops and tears

But now the floe turns and starts to flow
in rivers of thawed out heart-ice
and emotions once caged start to angrily glow —
An avalanche loosed from its vice

The glacier crashes, a tectonic shift
as mountains of blue-white burst the dam:
The inland is transformed by dramatic drift —
Who will find new order in the break of the jam

my heart is hole punched
hidden in the back of my folder
rings clamped tight
to keep it from fluttering away
and though i don't write in pen
my words still bleed
ink smudged arteries

sordid scripture,
warring woman,
both menace and coquettish innocence
—barricaded.

statues,
fountains,
and restraining orders,
filling the garden:
decorations of
sunlight on a clock,
and a view into tomorrow,

revealing the "texture" of her skin
within the realm of her navel,
as soft as lace,
as smooth as
the surface of a pond.

before diving in
gives an otherworldly radiance,
her shape and smile
compared to everyday realities
are solemn in the extreme,  
the dawn threatens
to break in the east.

her voice,
(a lungfully deep, sensuous purr),
is so distinctive,
come what may,
this could be happiness:

sullen, waylaid and capricious,
her urban sexuality hidden
in the attic of revolution,
suffused with the dreamlike, hazy glow
of colored lights and tinsel.

desire is like Christmas
—it always promises
more than it delivers.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.