Exciting Poetry News

I recently found out that my poem "Hide" will be published in Z Publishing House's upcoming book, "Colorado's Best Emerging Poets."

The book will be available for purchase online January 15th, 2018 and can be pre-ordered (and supports me!) through the link below: 

http://www.zpublishinghouse.com?rfsn=927211.79835

Famine

I am starving. 

No-

Rather,

I am starved.

Beyond empty

shrinking 

in capacity

as to

descend

and fill up

the enemy of space

I find no comfort

in empty promises 

of food

existing 

Somewhere

Out there

Waiting for me

in the world

Knowing I'll have food

Knowing I'll eat again

-someday

Doesn't soften today's pangs,

the screams,

All hollow and sad.

Like me.

Lonely and

Malnourished.

Sometimes I wonder

When the famine ends

If I will remember how to eat

at all.

Stay

for KMKB, my soul sister, always.



To sit on the sidelines, 

civilized, composed,
untouched, 

unharmed,

while you are so hurt--

Is a special kind of hell.

All I want to do is intervene--

hold your shield,
yes, I'll hold, you punch,

I'll carry you when you can't,

hold up the mirror for you and remind you

of your gold

when you feel so dirty.

It is a special kind of hell

to be geographically
obtuse,
irrelevant.

Trapped behind white tape.

To watch the monster stalk you,

To see it gain on you,

and selflessly,

and selfishly,

hate that fucking corrupt beast,

from my core to anti-soul
and back again.

And then,

I remember.

I know that the beast feels for you with

the same veracity

the same intensity

the same longing

that I do.
Where I will lilacs, dance, and laughter
it feeds on bloody death.

My grip is strong,
maybe even stronger.

But it is a magnet

with poles in a circle
a spiral
deeper than roots,
than veins.

And to feel powerless

as I watch while

it ravages you and 

mars your tender soul,
it is a special kind of hell.

Because,

I can only do so much from the sidelines.

And love,
I will scream for you as long as I have breath,
a heartbeat,
root for you at the top of my lungs

And encourage you forever.

But to see you trip,

to be captured, and not be able 

to do

anything...

it is hell.

You say that I am helping.

You say that this helps.

But I feel powerless.

If I could pause it all,

give you a break,

I would. 

I would do whatever it took.

I wish I could show you how exquisite you are.

I wish I could make you believe in yourself.
I wish I could take your place.

I feel scared when you hate yourself this much.

I want more than anything for you to be gentle with your body,

to learn to love it,

to see yourself through true eyes.

To see the complexity of who you are

in the purest, 

most lovely fragrance,

a breeze that floats,

dissipates, dissolves,

and bursts,

emanating with the inherent self,

your beauty,

your wholeness,

just

singing in the spaces between words.

I know that this is coming.
I have to keep believing,
even just for myself.
I have no choice.
I will be
addicted to hope.

Until then,

I will stay with you.
We will keep crawling through hell.

It is a special kind of hell
sacred to me

-- because you are here.

I will stand in the fire with you

and for you,
and

always,
I promise-
I will stay.


Please, please
please promise me
that you will choose to
stay

too.

Hide

it's not an impending storm 
that sends people into their houses

but--
the threat of one

--that causes them to duck their heads,
close the windows,
yell for the kids to hurry home.

it is not the truth
but

the threat of being exposed
in a lie

--that sends us running to hide

to be both the storm
and the coward:
this is misery

hiding
as I lie down
to create shelter
from the storm
I've made
I get it,

finally--

I don't want love without being true.

And I cannot love
until I am known.

Shell

Tonight, I walked into a gas station to buy some oil for my car. When I found what I needed, I approached the counter to purchase my items. I plopped down the two quarts of oil and watched the clerk visually assess my purchases and then I saw the birth of his eminent confusion as he juxtaposed the purchases to the purchaser: a 5’11”female, alone at a 7-11 at 11pm.

He babied me with his eyes and asked "Are you sure you know what to do with that?" Ignoring his condescension, I smiled and politely said "yes." He lackadaisically completed the transaction, and then said, "I'm not sure you do... Is your boy-toy going to help you with that? You know, so you don't get too dirty? Girls can't do anything with cars."

I gave him a blank stare and just said, "Nope. And this girl can." I then asked for a paper funnel (for obvious reasons) and he smirked back and said, "Why- are you gonna bake me a cake, babe?"

He winked at me and I walked away.

On my drive home, I had a lot of time to think about this whole transaction, and to go slightly Anne Lamott on you, here are my thoughts.

Initially, I was shocked, but I was shocked because of the absence of what I felt. I realized that I am not disgusted by this, not saddened by this, not offended by this, nor furious about this. I am not overwhelmed; I am not even upset.

What I am is curious: curious how this individual has become immune to the existence of other human beings and completely disregards any level of sensitivity. I am curious how reality looks in his brain. I want to know what color his thoughts are, how he shades his words, and what he highlights.

Maybe this event struck me because I have not experienced this level of disrespect in my young adult life. Or maybe I just have never been aware of the consequences of what was actually happening to me. He wasn't telling me that I'm dumb, that I'm pretty, or that I ought to be in the kitchen. In his words, what he said was “You are a shell.” He said, “I do not see you.”

My intention in sharing this experience is not to shake my fist at all the men in the world, or to push any feminist agenda or shame men for being so patronizing. This is not to dismiss encounters of chauvinism and misogyny that have become far too regular. Misogyny is real and it is alive, and we women are very good at fighting fire with fire.

I want to share this because of what this event showed me in an inexplicable way was: I have been blessed a million times over to have grown up with men and women that respect one another: in speech, in action, in thought, in practice, in theory, and in mind. The men in my life have modeled for me what I deserve and how I deserve to be treated (further-- how I deserve to be spoken to.) I have been given the gift of personhood in the eyes of the men in my life.

This one instance at a 7-11 in the middle of Aurora with a rude stranger was a small and futile experience to me. But it still stuck, because here I am, writing this. I keep asking myself "why?" But I am trying to listen to the impulse i my soul to write.

Maybe I should have defended myself. Maybe I should have chewed him up and embarrassed him. Maybe I should have given him a taste of his own medicine. But I didn’t.

I didn’t because I don’t need to prove my womanhood to him or to anyone else. I do not need to justify my purchase of motor oil simply because of my gender.

When I look at someone, do I see them? Or do I see what I want to see? Do I see what I expect to see? Am I really seeing someone as they are? As unique, wonderfully and fearfully created children of God? Or am I putting them in a box?

I think we underestimate the power of our words in the potential to alter someone’s reality. Language is the currency of life’s transactions. When I wake up tomorrow, I want to choose to put on my humanity. The only way to put out a fire is to neutralize it.

When we put out a fire, we do not douse the entire fireplace with water and change the square footage into a pool. We do not tear down the fireplace and vow to never be warmed again. We put out a fire by ending the flame at its source and not replacing it with anything. We put out misogyny by choosing to fight as pacifists. Respect and sight will be my weapons of choice.

What I want to share is a thank you. A thank you to the men who treat other men and women with respect. To the women who treat other women and men with respect. To the people who treat other people with respect. To the people who buy motor oil and the people who bake cakes. To the people in front of the counter and the people behind. 

Reaching

I just wish that for once, 

you'd be weak.

Instead of numb,

That you would descend into the foggy caverns of your need 

And grapple with your hunger,

Face it, name it,

No longer hide behind the circular sound or crumpled up pages,

scratching aimlessly at your temples, 

and bleeding Cabernet.

That you would carry its broken consequences to the precipice of my skin

And let me reach into you 

Star struck, wide eyed,

with whatever homebound magic remains left in me, and

Again resemble the fickle girl

that fell in love with you.

A mask that allows me to stay,

Together we would stay, held,

or-

I would stay-

Within the cold, embraced,

Under the unforgiving pavement.

It is dark

and we are not light.

But you are familiar, stable,

I blanket myself in this consistency.

Armed against my unintentional and imminently hollow soul. 

I dance with the devil.

Convince myself that I am safe.

Bargain my dignity for a crumbling and fragmented

poor excuse for a 

match,

You light the spark.

I am not illuminated,

I can not see.

I am not light, not lovely, not bright,

You are not seen,

But you are deeply aglow.

Subtle. 

So that maybe you would not know

Or need to

How desperately

I crave the caress of your poison

the hearth of your shackles .

How automatically

and voluntarily 

I reach in your direction,

Abandon integrity 

And charge toward 

my own demise,

An unconscious ideology of heroism.

Choosing to put

the storm before the calm. 

I repeat anxiety

Then awoken by unprecedented flags.

In the heaviest hail, the thickest whiplash,

I bow my head to the shame, 

to the longevity of my prophetic and burning heart.

You retreat, 

I am swallowed in my vacancy.

The smoke lingers in the dead air,

the settling ash collects upon my open palms,

dirtying my grapple for life 

like water running through my guilty fingers,

That I plead, beg, 

check every box

Until I am defeated,

I cannot reach, and

I won,

And you wave the white flag for me.

But

I did not fight a good fight.

I am caught

with skin still in the game,

between what I want

what I need

and what I deserve.

So yet again

I surrender,

Open palms. 

I succumb to the pull of the tides, 

Hold my breath, cover my face,

Reach toward the compelling evidence of my soul on the ocean floor.

A white flag dances atop a lighthouse.

You are that lighthouse. You are

that island, my vessel,

and the waves.

You are guiding me, saving me, delivering me, and killing me.

So with open palms 

I lay down my armor, 

my Rorschach camouflage,

and stand bare and tall 

through what I know I don't know.

I trace the edge of infinity's shore

With the frayed edge of the white flag

that once traced your skin.

There are more than two sides to every story--

I know it now,

Maybe you would say that I have seen the light.

I am not done reaching yet.

"Welcome home."

It is quiet

And I am too dry,

too susceptible,

to turn a page in the grasses.

Paralyzed in grief

Forcing a stillness to comfort me

Hearing resonance in news anchors

And non-existent whispers in the staircase

My steps are opaque

but my heart is what bears the affliction.

My only choice

Has already been determined.

Silence is everything.

Swallowing words

And choking on soap

This invisibility is heavy.

And it’s bruising my bones with rings,

and stripes

that I have earned,

or,

so I am told.

I am cemented in hushed sounds.

A statue of faded zeal,

Face chipped with snide

decorated,

seen and not heard.

“Don’t let it get to you” and

“This doesn’t concern you”

Like I am to be as forgetful

as a generic apologetic template;

As silent and ambiguous

as early morning fog.

On that 747

I thought I had escaped the nightmare

when really, I just entered a new one.

A new one that

that

I used to call

“home.”