This is the law that supersedes all
Other laws:
Thou shalt not complain.

Thou shalt have a successful career
𝘢𝘯𝘥
Shalt be a perfect mother.

Thou shalt be innocent and experienced,
Rebellious—
But not too much.

Thou shalt never need help.

Thou shalt never age
Yet maintain a veneer
Of self-acceptance.

Thou shalt not be overly
Emotional
But thou art not permitted to be
Robotic.

Thou shalt be assertive
But lo upon the woman
Who dares express anger.

Thou shalt have infinite patience.

Thou shalt be progressive without
Challenging the status quo.

Thou shalt carry thy burdens with
Immeasurable strength and without
Disintegration or failure.

And ye shalt do these things, that
Ye might become the 21st Century
Woman.

If we could hazard a guess, tomorrow is the day everything changes. That's the famous phrase. Something about the way the pink roses on the counter stand so tall and proud. When I was young I envisioned I would be like them someday. Deep into my womanhood, tully aware of the force I have to push with to keep my shoulders up. But I would do it, that's what I believed. These days it's enough to hold the weight of breathing, and enough to move limb after limb. To keep up with the minutes and still meet them up ahead with a gracious smile. On repeat, morning sun to evening moon. Some days my limbs they move me, others I move with them too. That's how it goes. Sometimes the roses are drooping, sometimes they bloom instead. All the time they are alive and present, standing, even as they shed.

Is it my voice, or yours, that I hear
When I pick up a knife and fork and put
It straight back down because
I haven’t earned my reward?

Are they my eyes, or yours, that trick me
Into thinking I’ve gained immense amounts of weight,
Even though my clothes hang loose and
I’ve lost two inches off my waist?

*

It’s ironic,
this disease;
it eats away at me.
The malignancy consumes me.

If you told me what to do.
I'd do it all  and more.

It's the way I've always known.
It's the way I've always been.

From the school bells.
That used to ring.
To the parents that preached.

It seems I'm good at.
Listening with open ears.

Tell me what to wear.
Where to go,
Who to be.
What to say.

Tell me to do your bidding.
I'll bury your bodies.
Hold your secrets close.

Nobody will ever know your damage.
They'll only ever really see my own.

If you told me what to do.
I'd do it just for you.

To be praised.
To be thanked.
To be yours.
To be loved.

It's the way I've always been.
It's the only way I know.

What to do.
Who to be.
How to love.

I woke up to find a lipstick print on my bathroom mirror.

I wondered which color,
which shade,
which shape,
would leave such an imprint.

I wondered whose aunt,
whose sister,
whose mother,
would leave such a gift.

However way it ended up there, I’ll say this for sure:
when I kissed the mirror, in return,
my print wasn’t a match.


(Whoever you are, I love you.)

My first cigarette was with you,
taken from the sewing kit where your mom hid them.
She was sneaky, and you were sneaky too.
We were 11, riding bikes in tube tops and lip gloss.

Lip gloss red,
lipstick
tight-lipped,
Cheap trick.

Cheerleader in the front yard.
We touched every inch of dirt with cartwheels,
chanting calls until we felt powerful.
There was a game being played—
but you had already lost.

Trying hard,
watch and whirl.
Look at her,
foolish girl.

Nights spent at your house,
watching your mom never smile,
your brother with his mean friends.
Pillows on the rough floor.
I knew some dads climbed in sleeping bags.

Sleeping bags,
full of sass.
"Close your legs,
you have no class."

When school was done, you were done.
There must have been a plan to pawn you off—
because you were gone.
No one but me was shocked.

Shock, dear.
Tock, dear.
I see the way
you disappear.

I asked.
It wasn’t even a conversation after dinner.
Lips closed, eyes averted.
You left with the first man.
Nobody watched from the trees
as each bite of you was swallowed away.

"Let me go.
You are fine."
Smile slap.
"You are mine."

I went on. I had resources.
I waited. I wanted babies
and placed an order. Planned. One. Two.
Conscious, different.
No prom pregnancy for me.

Broken pieces,
birth control.
Had no master,
kept me whole.

I kept moving, moving, moving.
You didn’t come home when your father died.
Your mother got ashy and old.
She didn’t plan well.
Your brother sells the family house.

Goodbye house.
A yard of graves.
You are the ghost,
too gone to save.

A "For Sale" sign poking up from the family plot.
Your desires waited quietly
until the flecks settled—
down, down, buried in the dirt,
only occasionally glinting in the sun.

Only me,
to the end.
Goodnight, girl.
Goodbye, my friend.

Brought forth by sin.
Born of my mothers womb,
dressed in fine lace,
who know this had all started so soon.

Some day,
I'll bear one too.
Through pain and blood,
I'll create one just like you.

The blood that seeps once a month,
like crushed pomegranate seeds,
carrys the burden of the seed
unsown

The crunch of the apple dear,
Was it good?
Was the trade fair?
Now, We are all brought forth in blood and dispair.

Born in sin.

I speak with a wavering tongue of abandonment
Unsure to explore the Old Story in a distant time
The dowager and the maiden forced to defend
An unexplored narrative that supersedes Her Crime
But the call is impossible to resist
Most especially a female’s debut is not of her age
Rather an unfortunate event where he exists
To inflict the indomitable damage

For in the beginning, desecration is a promise
On womanhood that prevails
Lingering from a girl’s memory crevice
There is an incomplete circle with raggedy details
So it is the phenomenon she continuously bleeds
Through the vagueness of a shapeshift letters
Her growling mind where the prophecy feeds
The neurotic critters

Bruises from the Elder Man turns into hollowed scar
The autopsy did not identify a blunt trauma
Only the stolen lullabies and constellation chart
Excreting from his mouth is a monochromatic drama
Challenging suffering with evil like a reverse lobotomy
No emotional endurance can express her distress
Over the gap between their ages as the legacy
And so shall the judge orders his arrest

The second Prince is enamored at first sight
He prays to the gods for their union fate
Until the war triggers her to fight
Her sins and rumors tainted it too late
Choice has been made to bare her skin
At first, she thought it’s empowering
Until it pulverizes her patience to thin
Being radical as her sweetest ending

The Rising Sun aligns with the beguiling lady
She howled at the future of his departure
But nothing hurts like a shadow of the first Macy
She tries to separate her identity as her adventure
So she can be chosen and different from her twin
In no connection to blood, only the lover
The world is crushed when the others win
Comparison between Macy and lady will not recover

Stability comes from the face of discipline
An offer of love has set the story into motion
But she lashes out against his morphine
Evident as her cruelty remains his devotion
Two years of an unrivaled reign
It must be finished
The anticipative break is present without pain
I spared his soul before it diminished

Tell me now, man of the universe!
Owner of all aspects and humanity
I was not born to accept your objective curse
My sisters aspire to rise and maintain equality
Except I see a dysfunction to the standard
I spit at the thought of Him by my side
Apocalyptic approach on this regard
Declaration of freedom will abide

Nonsensical apocalypse of her birth
Doomed by ***, astoundingly rebellious
It is I, a woman, who understands the earth
My nature is exquisite in spontaneous
Root of all evil, I shall not meet with forgiveness
I associate this Seed of Mankind
Let us dim its imaginary limitless
Upholding such values should be left behind

A cry from a newborn arises
Phallus is connected to the subject
The mother knew his fate on crisis
His crimes will be stamped with neglect
Finally, a girl is not caressed in regret
For it is punishment to be born like him
His paranoia, a symptom of being possessed
It is no longer a she that will end in a grim

Sorry for the smell,

the fact is, I ate onions --


It's my period.