I am sorry.
You may have the beauty of a Greek goddess
And men worship your charm
But it is not enough

I am sorry.
You may have the voice of an angel
Especially when I hear you say Nixen
But my ears desire for more

I am sorry.
Yes I agree, your sweetness is intoxicating
And your affirmation gives me strength
But my soul longs for more

For I know you, woman, are just a poor imitation of Him
He, my Creator, is my worth
The One that I choose to pursue
And will make me a man ready to lead you, my woman.

Have my rivers began flowing?
Is my hair finally growing?
The sharks are blood-thirsty.
Forgive me, but is my womanhood showing?
Is it only natural for them to prey on me when their thirst needs quenching?
Their tendencies are dangerous,
They can **** with a look.
When their finished, they leave you for dead.
After using every trick in the book.
They leave you for the next and the next after that.
In their eyes, you're just another fish in the sea, they can pound away at.

Keep your head down,
Don't attract attention to yourself.

Be polite, but not too nice to that stranger in a bar in midtown,
He might mistake it for flirtation and try to buy you one off a shelf,
Maybe mix something in a drink.

Don't be a **** and don't be a bore,
And swallow your fear
Of the man on the subway who sized you up and winked.

While the world may stand and jeer,
You must work twice as hard,
Thrice, even, to be thought of
As just as good.

Which is why you ought to keep
Your guard,
And never give an excuse to show Emotions, lest everything you Worked for be written off as
"It's that time of month."

I first felt her flow as Blue Lady tea steeped on a delicately crafted doily.

Cranberry Orange Scones paired with doll-sized cutlery.

I’d be excused.

A late bloomer,

steeping slowly from the flowering buds of my very own teapot.



Mothers, sisters, friends, daughters together

sharing a Blue winter in that tea shop.

When at fourteen, womanhood gifted

me the first of many

moments.

This would spark my wondering why women weren’t known

solely for their strength, rich in resilience,

like the blackest tea.



As Blue Lady steeped steadily from the table to the lady’s room.


Anna Blake

Summer’s time has come and gone
The walls, floorboards release a yawn
With nine months then to recoup, recover
From being a home, just for the summer.

Eloquent memories freshly remain
Of friends who nestled within her frame
A cabin of bunk beds, cubbies, fresh air
Where girls unwound with little a care.

Her crevice now holds a left-behind letter
Whose parchment hardens with winter’s weather
Yet the season’s sleet knows the warmer reflection
Of late night secrets and encouraged imperfection.

Spring has sprung most slowly for some
The evergreens exclaim a harmonious hum
Her wooden steps defrost, and patiently await
The coming of campers to the cardinal state.

Fall, winter, and spring all pass
Warm rays have woken the mountains at last
Each cabin’s frame stands taller, *****
While girls, all ages, reconnect.

Anna Blake

Our sweet mother, taken away so soon -
gasping for breath as the heavy weight of perfection sat on her chest.
Even in death, she is perfect -
used to her full potential by many men seeking warmth but not love.

No, never love.

These men nestled inside her and made her full - full of life but not the kind that makes you love yourself when looking in the mirror.

The type of life they filled her up with was the kind that nearly killed her in the delivery room - crying out as she was ripped apart and her child was taken by strange hands. Hands of men.

These men ****** her and ****** her and ****** her until the last drop of life she had left disappeared from her eyes.
These men are the ones who look into her coffin and murmur, she was so beautiful.
So perfect.

She died knowing she was not beautiful, could never be beautiful. Beautiful was a word uttered from men's ***** mouths, a word that had been tainted unknowingly.

She died gasping for breath, needing to say those words before she left this world. Needing to say it, needing to say it, needing to say it...
I am not beautiful.

Here lies love,
our mother who will never be beautiful or perfect for as long as I am breathing in this world.
Here lies death,
our real mother who was always more than beautiful. More than perfect.

There's not a single word to describe what she really was. But never beautiful.
No, never perfect.

You don’t know what it’s like to dig and dig and dig in the dirt with bare hands
digging toward fecundity
I am trying to find the honest words
Buried under our mother’s bones
But all I have now is the dirt under my nails, and
because I am a woman
I set my bucket of soap and water down hard
I scrub the blood out of the wood
My knees tear open from supporting my own weight and soak the floor
Every clean movement forward is erased by the brushstrokes of my own body
Please
Don’t tell me you know something about housekeeping
My body is an apology I can’t scrub clean

I drank the sea
No one was watching but me
The salt crystallised my bones
But the water made me free
Shells covered my lips and eyes
Seaweed lay as hair
And slid down throat
Sand layered like skin
Pages of a diary
Formed by waves on waves
I smelt of fish
And open air
I raged all over
Threw my spitting hands to the sun
Let it evaporate away my sins
I tossed my hair to the wind
And danced pebbles as my feet
I rolled with the tide
Tossed here and there
Fishermen tried to ****** parts of me
But I eluded them
Flowed ever faster to the shores
Picked men from rocks and threw them back
Sank deep and long
swam out again, to the deep
I rolled with whales
sifted krill through my teeth
tumbling currents rinsed my skin
Quick-silver flashing in my belly
coast to coast I roamed and rushed
and as the darkened tide turned,
I slipped out again to the deep
not content to walk when I could *swim

She took the beatings, the
Blood smearing her skin
Took the lashings, and the slaps,
And hid her grin
The first time a man gripped her thighs,
Ripped them apart, and forced his way
Past her heart, numbing her to love,
Then threw her away
Numbed down deep to her soul,
She almost broke, almost cried,
Almost tied the knot tight, and
Almost,
almost,
almost died
She gave birth to generations
Told them her stories and
Unto them she bequeathed
All her spirit and her worries
She reached past the pain,
Pushed past the slaked lust
Turned herself inside out
Despite the bruises and distrust
She built her walls high,
Enough to endure the storms life
Somehow thought she could survive
And relished a calm from the strife
A destiny couldn’t be resisted
Nevertheless, she persisted