The first thirty minutes
of the session with my therapist
were spent figuring out
why she couldn’t hear me
in her headphones.
The second half
I just stared at a wall
in my 350 sq foot apartment
and showed her my new plants.
I asked her to research kink
before we meet next.
“Don’t yuck my yum.”
Everything is too much.
I just want to let it hurt
and get fucked until I can remember
how to cry in therapy.
Thump. Ding. Chimes, tremors
trigger more endorphin floods.
Violence as a drug.
what is sunshine
if not the fallacy of darkness
illuminated and exposed
radiant in golden tones
a reflection of what once was
shine down brightly on me
express to me the reasons
why any of it is
take my utter dullness
evade my coldness
yielding the finality of it all
-for my kids
You’ve been through active shooter drills
since kindergarten. Heard the president
brag about grabbing women’s genitals,
make fun of disabilities and when our soldiers
are captured war prisoners. Seen whale bellies
full of plastic, so many Black folks killed
on the livestream, boats of refugees gone
down in the Mediterranean. Children stolen
on our own soil and locked in cages.
Malala shot in the head for wanting to go to school.
Standing Rock with tanks rolling in. How I cried
after Pulse and Sandy Hook.
You’ve been to marches, Nazis condemning
your sign, been to Pride and had preachers damning you
for a rainbow. I’ve tried to let you see the truth
in manageable bites. I know these bites bite hard.
I want to say it’s not supposed to be like this.
But humans are as humans do. One will shoot
a man in the gut. Someone else will press their own hand
to the wound. One will walk across a desert for help. Another
will lock her in prison when she arrives. Build it. Tear
it down. Build it back. Blow it up. Sift the rubble
for survivors. Doctor them back to health. Rock their kids
through the night terrors. Send the drones back in just as soon
as they learn how to sleep again.
I want to say it’s not supposed to
be like this, but maybe it is.
We are the horror and the triumph and the horror again.
Remember back to when you were really little?
How I taught you not to hit other people?
That it’s important to be kind, and share, and help?
Yeah. The grown ups still don’t get it.
We believe Mr. McAtee
died of a single gunshot wound
We have not recovered
one whole bullet
We have recovered
fragments
We are trying to identify
the nature
of the fragments
If
You
Could truly see
This pain I hold
The fool
I have come to believe
The disgrace
The shame
She
She now is yours
My heart
It
Does not ache
For I have not lost
I
Do not need you
But
You have shamed me to believe you held so heavy the promises you made
You have wronged me to think you would never be my past
You knew my tears
You created these scars
You are the disgrace
I
Am
Free
I am peace
I don’t practice black magic,
but,
Why the fuck not?
If ever there was a time for
fury
it is now.
With this knot
–that heavy one, sits on the chest–
I seal this hex.
Snarls of anger, labyrinths of hate
Disregard of humanity brings you your fate.
I tear out this second knot
–my own blood is there, too, see? We’re both guilty–
Bringing darkness over you
–and this tine, one of more than your own making–
Slander, discord, evil, greed,
Feeding revenge, the barbed seed.
May it grow into a third knot, with thorns to bind.
–my own fear, my own doubt, all the power we misuse–
May it cloud over the morass of your mind.
Hex of hurt, hex of disgust,
Let it push us to do what we must.
Bring them down, I will not wait!
–now is not the time to be silent–
Bring them down, it’s not too late.
As I will, as you will, as we will,
So mote it be.
As I eat,
we watch her totter through a room
of ghosts,
a living room that is anything but.
She smiles,
turns,
tumbles,
grabs fistfulls of sweets,
so fitting for the cavity that will soon
follow.
When we come home,
candy litters the floor,
each left with the imprint
of a small child’s death grip.
Slowly, these walls have become
a cage of bone. Ensnared between
memory and misery,
I take one more bite and lie still.
Sickness. Deep
and buried within
more of our world
than we’d like
to admit. Should we
scream? Should we
cry? Nothing
will (or should)
ever
be the same after
this. What is
the point of going back
to “normal” if “normal”
meant that murderers
could walk freely while
innocent people could
be killed? What is
the point of going back
to “normal” if “normal”
means that our
institutions continue
to fail us and
destroy us?
