I Am My Own Euphoria

you called me a tornado, a natural disaster that spun out at the end of your fingertips   and i saw in my head how many times i’ve been  a calm ocean, a morning where there is nothing moving but a few birds, a warm sunday with no responsibilities   i am a blizzard. i arrive and leave nothing but cold behind me. but i am also the spring thaw, the grass below.   “girls like that,” you write about me in your books and poems, “are  hurricane systems, they are sudden destruction,  they come and they go.”    but if you stuck around  and got to know girls like me you’d figure out  we are more than our wild hearts and  quick tongues and fire breathing,   we are leftover cake, we are the rainbow on your birthday, we are good socks and bad movies, we are loving, loving, loving; a tidal wave of passion that comes without warning but floods only with laughter, with light, with devotion   girls like me will never be more than a quick storm to boys like you. girls like me are good for a few months before you start seeing our paint chip off and we stop being so mysterious and hard to keep track of girls like me are only fun until you see how we’re fueled by a swirling darkness, girls like me are only worth it until it’s four in the morning and we’re awake and sobbing, girls like me are tornadoes,    on the inside, we are witches. we are strong. we are a fury, but we are  gold.

She calls my arms a crime scene, licks the blood from my chest, then listens to the thumping beneath it. Yes, she knows what these hands have done. She knows I’ve poked holes in the water of every bed I’ve ever slept in, knows what my heart looks like when it’s tired; the pastel houses lining the streets. The lipstick shades of the bored housewives with their ambrosia salads, stuffing the mouth of pain until it can’t say their names anymore. She loves me this many bodies-worth. She loves me this many mountains. She stretches across the room, forgives me without blinking.

they’re impact craters! callisto is one of the most heavily cratered object in the solar system, and as far as my very basic research has just gone, the light parts are essentially iced over impact craters

“Companies are not loyal to you. Never believe a company has your back. They are amoral by design. Build multiple streams of income.”-Molly Crabapple

if i wrote a love letter to the diaspora it would break every word count undo every border erase every dictionary definition unravel every noun/verb/adjective and then it would unwrite itself no colonial tongue was made to describe or translate or sustain the pain trauma love that is lived with every fractured severed healing diasporic breath

YOU DIDN’T WRITE ME LOVE POEMS, SO NOW I’M WRITING THEM FOR MYSELF. CAPITAL LETTERS ON MY HEADER SO PEOPLE KNOW I’M MAKING CHANGES YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE APPROVED OF. NO MORE SMALL VOICES HERE, I’M LAUGHING LOUD NOW, I’M SINGING WHERE OTHERS CAN HEAR ME, I’M PRETENDING THAT I’M ON STAGE BECAUSE MAYBE SHAKESPEARE KNOWS A LITTLE SOMETHING.  YOU NEVER PUSHED MY HAIR BACK BEHIND MY EAR.  YOU NEVER HELD ME GENTLY TO WAKE ME. YOU ONLY KISSED ME IF IT MEANT GETTING ME NAKED. YOU DIDN’T BUY ME CHOCOLATE. YOU NEVER DREW ME FLOWERS. WE WATCHED YOUR SHOWS AND LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC AND ATE THE FOODS THAT YOU LOVED AND I TOLERATED. YOU NEVER HELD MY HAND LIKE YOU MEANT IT. WELL NOW I’M PUTTING IN EXTRA CONDITIONER AND LATHERING UP. I’M NOT WEARING MY HAIR LIKE I USED TO. I’M SOMEBODY ELSE NOW, AND I LOOK IT. MORNINGS ARE BLISS BECAUSE I RISE AND I MEAN IT. I KISS THE MIRROR BECAUSE I’M PRETTY AND PERFECT AND I DON’T NEED TO WAIT AROUND FOR YOU TO REMEMBER TO TELL ME IT, I KNOW IT. I DRAW MY OWN FLOWERS ON EVERYTHING I OWN, I BATHE IN THEM. I MARATHON SEASONS OF TELEVISION WITHOUT WORRYING THAT YOU’LL MISS SOMETHING. I LISTEN TO MY MUSIC SO LOUD THAT THE SPEAKERS START JUMPING. I EAT FOOD THAT FEELS GOOD AND I FEEL GOOD TO BE EATING. AND MY HANDS? THESE HANDS THAT HAVE SCOURED FLOORS AND YOUR SKIN AND HAVE HELD YOU AND HELD US TOGETHER AND PUSHED MYSELF INTO THE IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANTED AND SCRATCHED AND CLAWED AND NEVER TOOK ENOUGH? THESE HANDS ARE ATHENA. THESE HANDS ARE TEMPLE DOOR. THEY ARE WOLF ON THE PROWL. THESE HANDS DON’T NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR WHERE THEY’VE BEEN, THEY KNOW AND THEY ARE HAPPY ABOUT IT. THESE HANDS COULD BUILD CITIES AND BURN DOWN ROME. THESE HANDS GROW GARDENS AND SEW WITH STEEL. THESE HANDS KNOW FIRE. THESE HANDS WRITE ME DESTINY, PAINT ME SKY, SWADDLE ME SLEEP. THESE HANDS ARE STRONG ENOUGH TO PULL ME TO SHORE. I AM FREE. I AM FREE. NO. I DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE.

A short list of mantras for Women of Color

you are hanging, you are upside down, you are not in love with her but loneliness is desperation,             it makes you into a desperate thing. you are wild, violently flaming like a bonfire, like a car wreck,            boom                        crash                                     explosions                                                          e   v   e   r   y   w   h   e   r   e on fire and you’re surprised you aren’t dying, surprised you aren’t dead. everyone is so eager to die nowadays, all drugs and drunk-driving, we’re trying to drown the emptiness, trying to fill it up again, we miss the children that we were, the people we’ll never be. you are an empty creature, you’re claws are brittle, the monster eats you inside out, starlight in your veins and you still couldn’t scream once. you’re on fire but you burn everything you touch. you are not in love with death but your love won’t have you, romance the destruction instead, let death fuck you since we’re all beasts anyway. you think it matters what we do?