Julia Roth

My lovers tongue is not that of an Italian, 

swooning in summer heat, wrapped 

in the salt of sweat or rich 

cream.

My lovers tongue is the schtick of my ancestors, 

my Yiddish bones, the schlacks and schlocks I ran from 

too many years on end. I wanted 

sex, vibrato, slender, kind, 

soft. I wanted fierce, hot, pulse.

I got kugel. Spit. 

Mountains of latke peels 

and aching backs 

and "next year in israel"s.

I got thick tongues 

and harsh spit

and wet 

kisses. 

I got them back. They were mine again.

It would be years until I came to the bed of my 

language, the warmth of the sounds that bore me, fell to my knees

at my grandmothers tongue 

and begged it to take me back. 

It was the only lover I wanted. 

Let him lock all the doors.

He does this to feel safe.

He does this to keep you safe.

Keep all your fortunes from your fortune cookies,

encourage him to write today.

He will bend down and look at slugs on the sidewalk, love this.

He will run in a Thunderstorm at 4am to get you to the airport, accept this.

He will bring you every memory he has kept in a locked box that he will unlock and lock again. Offer him yours.

You will tell him you are spilling over on him and he

will draw hearts into your palm with his fingertips until you stop

crying.

My hands belonged to me until

the day I sat curled up on the

hood of the car, clutching my heart in my throat as

the curly-haired boy removed his

grin from my eyeline.

His eight-year-old words crawled up my four-year-old

neck, swimming through my ears eventually

taking a friendly

backstroke

in my bloodstream.

"There are alligators in the sewers," he repeated, baring his

teeth to my tears, "and they're gonna eat you."

I was his fresh kill,

tiny limbs writhing, my own curly hair spilled over

my tear stained face as my bottom

lip fluttered with each frantic ricocheting

inhale like a sputtering lawn mower.

Snot-covered wails spurted out something

that sounded like "what am I supposed to do?"

my first cry for help.

All he wanted was

the cookie dough ice cream in our freezer,

saying that he could soothe

them, tell them to spare me.

His eyes learned command, learned need, taught

mine how to beg, to receive orders, to

entrust your body to a man

who knew more.

It was the first time

I learned

my body didn't belong to me, it belonged

to beasts ready to

pull me apart.

It was the first time I learned how to say

Save Me.

And

You big broken heart You thick loud raucous beat that won't quit

Even if it's asked nicely

You homeland of ceremony, worship of the broken, cracked voice catcall You trombone blare Safe house of the reckless.

Thank you for mending my broken heart - The one you broke first.

Thank you for wrapping it in bourbon and strangers and grits

Thank you for holding me with full hands as I fell to pieces As I scrambled for the words The answers The reasons

Thank you for letting me not have any.

For crying on your doorsteps

For being the perfect thing at the perfect time

You were everything I needed. You made me whole.

I am whole now.

Someone will live here. 

Love here. Someone will come 

to stay.

Thank you for allowing me your railroads, your rivers, your Esplanades, your byways

For letting me stay when i was my time to stay. For keeping my seat warm.

Wow. Necessary. Sexual Aggressions come in lots of casual, dangerous forms. And terrifyingly common instances throughout childhood, adolescence, adulthood. Daily. Rape culture lives in classrooms, homes, body shaming, slut shaming, believing anyone has a right to comment on, look at, or touch another person. Believing they deserve something that isn’t theirs, and never will be.

One day I want to be the voice that consoles my mind.

When suffocation gets dressed up as the right track

And I throw my breadcrumbs to the best geese I know who faithfully flock to my side.

I’m drowning in gratitude for them. In fear of myself. That all of this Roman Candle in me won’t have an avenue, That I’ll leave this life without a footprint to fill a hole.

Don’t ever dim your light.

Laugh at yourself at every opportunity.

Remember to breathe.

You are perfect. You have always been perfect.

Your body will change, let it.

It holds your heart perfectly-

It is every piece of gorgeous,

everything holy in all it's cracks.

Be there for it.

One day there will be boys who will love it,

girls who will love it,

touch it softly and call it Venus.

Let them.

One day there will be boys who will hurt it.

Forgive them.

Forgive yourself for not walking away sooner.

You will try at every corner to control the outcome,

but let me tell you something, little one,

the outcome doesn’t give a fuck what you thought was going to happen.

Your heart will break. Love anyway.

Your dreams will change. They are not dead. Mourn them, then let them change.

Get messy. Get as messy as you can.

Dance in it.

Stay Uproarious. Raucous. Loudmouth.

Never stop hollering.

Let yourself love. Let yourself get loved.

Let yourself get so hurt,

so much poetry will come from it.

Forgive your parents,

they are trying.

Warn them about the poetry, too.

Let there be angst - I mean it.

Get it out.

Invest in a drum set and a group of great friends.

Never stop talking about what hurts. Sing often.

Learn how to say “fuck” but reserve it for magazines, naysayers, and mysogynists.

You will run into these a lot.

Fuck them.

Don’t really fuck them, unless of course, you want to.

Don’t feel shame in that, either.

Most importantly, get on your own team.

You deserve it.

You matter.

I will tell you every day.

Forgive yourself, trust yourself, love yourself.

You will forget that over and over. And when you finally remember,

You beautiful beast.

You Howl in the night,

late morning hangover all

soft breast and bared teeth.

This beautiful mess born

and reborn

in pain.

You pleasure-center of the South.

You are desperate, aching,

Sweat-drenched, Swamp-breathed,

foul mouthed creature

all Sex and Sadness.

All Love-drunk and Underbelly.

I have missed waking up

If it brings me to you,

I will let every poem I've spilled

end in tragedy.

I will faint in the bar on Esplanade at 4am 

and scare my own heart into a monitor,

so the first time we have sex

and the electrode falls

you will slam it

to your own chest and laugh 

about how it will  

confuse all the doctors back home.

If it brings me to you,

I will write love poems to you in that strange stage

of the in-between,

beg you not to read them 

and give you this website anyway.

If it brings me to you,

I will blast open every wall I have 

carefully constructed to keep love out.

I will fight.

Hard.

But reach for the dynamite anyway,

If it brings me to you,

I will keep learning this lesson 

over and over,

set fire to all the excuses I pile on to leave in fear

of getting broken,

free the Canary in my heart

who doesn’t yet know

that Safe and Sorry were the same thing.

I started writing this poem two years ago.

Every day I show up to your open-laked heart,

apologize for my own heart’s barriers

like prayer,

memorized, and hoping to God for help to change it.

It is taking me a long time to learn not to be sorry for myself.

Any part of it.

A canary still lives in my throat,

but now her song lets me know

to reach for the dynamite.

To fall, so flat on my ass.

So deep into you,

To make all the decisions

Even if they’re wrong.

Break down all the walls.

Leave the door unlocked,

blow it off the hinge,

So wide open and breeze blowing,

Think of all the wonderful things 

you could do 

in the 

T I M E 

you spend

The month I wouldn’t leave my bed I texted you every day,

Begging you to be the antidote

that took the damp out of my skin,

the cure for all of this too-much.

You were the safety net, the bigger and badder of us, the harder hitting and hardest hit.

the Agony I teased you would always keep me from.

You were a shadow I could stand in,

The firefly I kept in a jar for when my light went out,

all railings and safety nets, the invisible catch that let me live most of this life with my eyes closed.

So often I sent your hand back to you insisting that I had my own hands and yes, they were big enough.

But I texted you that morning in five pieces asking for the glue,

begging to be reassembled, terrified this time would be the last,

no amount of moonlight could lie its way into any brightness left to pull me out of the couch,

the sinkhole I dug and drowned myself in.

I asked you how you did it.

How you kept growing back.

"Starfish," you said.

"You will always grow your legs again.

You will burrow your roots into that sinkhole and grow

Up

Your light

will never go out.

It will come out in the cracks and crevices you have been trying so hard to patch.

Let it.

Let your thick heart heal you,

again.”

Yesterday I watched light leave your eyes when you weren’t looking.

And I say the same to you.

We are starfish.

We show up to our own funerals.

We hold our feelings upside down by the ankles

And shake the change from their pockets.

We are angry drunks at the bar, screaming

H I T   M E

To anyone who will listen.

We choose the sinkhole. We hit it hard. We say thank you.

We go insane.  

I don’t hold your hand anymore,

but your hands have held me together

and here are mine, for you.

Our swingset hearts show up with scuffed knees and grass stains.

We will always grow back,

you Starfish.

I never thought my first poem back would feel so much like a nervous boy

with a ring in his hand.

My throat grew accustomed to the cobwebs that so willingly blanket the screaming,

bundled by it's silence. Safer this way.

But anxious man and shaking hand, coyly approaching the one thing I've committed to and promised not to live

without.

This morning, I put on my heart for you, brushed off it's sleeves and shined

its shoes.

I showed up for you, today. I didn't run.

I vow to write more honestly,

to not feel so concerned with what sounds good

or what sounds bad, for that matter.

I vow to live, more honestly.

I vow to let this save me, to welcome the tremble,

To resound when I speak, bounce off the backs of giants.

Kid, You’ll Move Mountains.

At the water cooler,

day in and day out,

People pour coffee into their coffee,

pour dreams into their drains,

settle for settling

and tell stories of

who robbed them of what they really gave away.

-  

They call it the Bull Pen,

because eventually everyone is supposed to “see red,”

The Overlooked

and Overworked

build resentment like bricks,

remembering each time they’ve cleaned up someone else’s sick

who won’t remember their names.

-  

But they forget

that they have two hands

capable of creation,

two eyes

that can see through

anything

two legs that at any point can take them

out of their prison cell

but the cubicle is not where they are shackled-

they have barb-wired their own hearts shut,

decided their true talents would go undiscovered

while I’m undercover

a ladybug in a grey suit

handing out mirrors saying

"Beautiful You!"

-

There is no divide between your hopes and your hands.

I understand.

Do what you have to do,

punch the clock

until it gets a black eye

but use your downtime

to write.

Come out of the supply closet

and speak a little louder

because people don’t know to listen

if you don’t shout.

Breathe deep.

Take space.

Don’t let your soul take a beating

in order to save face

You are in the Perfect Place.

 -

Trust in yourself, your god, or your dreams

whichever,

Just remember what starts your fires

 -

don’t quit on your desires

if you enter a world of the mundane.

You are a miracle just for breathing

so celebrate your own brain!

Open your floodgates and see what comes through

Beautiful You!

Let your spirit spin your wheels

Let your Freak Flag Fly

Beat your drum so loud

That the second line seems shy.

Upturn rocks and dinner plates and see

whats underneath

Life is never-ending lessons

of learning how to turn no’s into yes’s.

-

Sometimes its hard to navigate the silence

and i know speaking can seem like defiance

and sometimes the no’s pile up in your bedroom

and you can’t reach the door

so you wear the no’s on your clothes

until you’re suffocated,

But let me tell you something,

You look better naked.

Your perfect body

Carries your Perfect Heart

and if you’ve never believed it

nows the best time to start

so put down the no’s and pick up the pen

and take of your clothes

and forget and remember

and forget and then remember again

-

There is no limit on your time

and there is no such thing as ‘confined’

just get to the heart of why you’re alive

and if you’re rudderless

just enjoy the ride

there’s something in store

and its yours for the taking

theres opportunities growing

and they’re yours for the making

so take them and shake them and see whats inside

there’s life trying to find you.

For Kaycee

The night before smells like ashes and skin

As i peel back my eyelids in my still sleeping room.

The voice comes in again unannounced.

You look repulsive again, darling, I see its par for the course.

It is the deciding moment of my day,

to take the razorblade to my heart or to my old habits,

to test my knuckles out on my own jaw,

berate my body for breaking the cookiecutter

of someone else’s shape.

My mouth moves in the mirror to the tune of the hatecrimes I commit on my lovehandles.

I want this to be over.

I want to dive face first into every self-help dialogue to get this skeleton

out of my closet.

Please, clean my squeaky wheels of your stick.

It is the part of my narrative I wish I never invited to dinner.