And:
your mouth holds the kind of words that make me want to write every single one of them down
while you see the deepest parts of me,
while my thighs open and you see a paradisiacal vestibule,
a miracle,
a life more resilient than cockroaches,
a cuckolded sorceress,
my love,
my life,
my youth: it’s yours.
On these knees that have always known how to garden,
I beg you with the ravenous of a wolf, a hunger of bare teeth,
fangs,
dripping blood,
dripping saliva,
dripping in you.
Is my womb lost to IUDs and medication and pathology that tries but can’t explain my magnificence?
That tries but can’t explain why we howl at the moon?
That tries but can’t explain how tides hold us?
How can I apologise for being complicit in my silence?
How do I apologise for all the ways I’ve destroyed your life by refusing to hold my own?
How do I apologise for all the ways I’ve avoided these emotions; all the ways I’ve tried to die?
And
all these layers I’ve tried to live in,
to hide how malnourished my heart has become, when it just wants to explode,
a wick begging for flame,
an orgasm edging for 27 years.
Who are you, mama?
Who am I?
Who are all the stories I’ve never heard that hold me in claws, this beast caged in my chest that I’ve kept enclosed,
shackled,
muzzled,
for fear of what you’ll say.
What dad will say.
What husband will say.
Mama, how do you allow these contracts that release our land rights, passed down by our sacred matriarchal line?
I’m cracked open,
broken,
mind-blown.
An angel has obliterated the lever on the TNT of my heart. It has exploded.
And now begins the rise of an impending phoenix,
but how do I teach her how to fly when all I’ve known is flames?
When all I’ve known is ashes?
How many years will it take for me to remember that all I want is for you to hold me while I grieve?
Did you ever, mama?
Did you ever just hold me while I cried?