Poetry is painful and

In what do you believe? In September’s slight motion of particulars, in the weight of birds, in lust, propulsion, maps that lie.

woman never under your thumb, says skull that was a head, says bloodshot eyes, says I’m the Kali woman the killer woman women with salt on her tongue fire that cleans fire that catches fire burns hotter as I go woman traded her secrets never, says woman reversed the poles, says woman never left America to know this but she did, says, she did leave woman combs snakes out of her hair woman combs demons out of her hair woman lies down with the cobra     then meditates under cobra canopy woman had a bone in her throat, says was it yours? says she admits she has a taste for you, says     she’s cannibal woman, Kali woman woman’s tongue once split in ten directions one: I’m a savage woman two: I’m the rutting woman three: I’m the fire dancer with coal-black feet four: Im the old-time thinker five: poseur woman six: I’m the redacteur seven: auteur eight: I haunt you with my songs nine: I was the nun     now I am bound by desire again ten: I’m the cittipatti woman     the dancing-skull woman mouth is moving, says skull-mouth moving, says says these things says terrible things as I go mouth is gaping tongue is bleeding everywhere suffering, as I go I’m the celebrity woman I’m the luminary woman I’m the standout woman I’m the braggart woman I’m the shrew at the window woman I’m the stigma woman the beaten woman the disgraced woman hag woman where will I go? who will have me? water clean me water clean me, as I go I’m the camouflaged woman I’m the assuaged woman I’m the ravenous woman I’m the Kali Yuga woman high-pitched woman not a trifling woman hissing woman I’m the woman with the fangs I’m the woman with the guns I’m the woman with tomes I’m the hook woman I’m the stolen book woman fire that burns as I go woman was in the world was walking woman was singing sounding the day away sounds like a cranky old machine, someone said (that someone was a mean man, mean child-man) but she just ignored the cranky old machine part & went on her way woman took her haughty self out of the sky she had a nose that tall how tall? that! & stuck up it was mincy mincy mincy mincy she cried mincy mincy mincy she was burning all right her house (the one she carried on her head) was afire

Poets are born to be witnesses, but sometimes we forget that that also means witnessing our own lives in a way that is unflinching and often painful. Our truths are harder than most truths, because we have the tools to find and deconstruct them.

You dichotomy of a girl, always stuck in the in-between of things because of what you were born with. This grenade, this pomegranate heart. A landmine the size of a fist. In other words: the reason you have blood thick as honey running through your veins, why your nails are always painted red, and how you keep finding ways to leave even when you stay. You imagine dying in a burning house. You have your childhood stuffed animals lined up neatly in a row and then all of a sudden, smoke. All of a sudden, running. You have one foot out the door, but you’ve stopped and you’re staring into a curtain of orange and no time has passed. The tombstone reads:Perished in flames. Left the world with too much love for the light that emanated from the same fire. Red, shrapnel of a heart summed up in two sentences. And this is the root and the end of everything. You, leaking like fruit. A fuse running on a fuse.

In me there is an animal, And in that animal There is a hunger.

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath…”

There is a garden growing in my chest. A small lush green land peppered with small daisy blooms. That garden’s name is ‘I am loved.’ There is an ocean flowing against my veins. A selfless and giving prison that carries every little fish and whispers in the air. That ocean’s name is ‘I am accepted.’ There is a fire laden in the depths of my soul. A slow yet treacherous blaze that can swallow the wild trees in one touch. That fire’s name is ‘I am free.’ There is a storm dwelling underneath my fingertips. A storm brewing in every little words and letters I write, shaking and uncontented. That storm’s name is ‘I am ready.’ I am the earth around you. I am what they call Mother. Some live inside or outside me.

Implicit in poetry is the notion that we are deepened by heartbreaks, that we are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief, by our refusal to vanish—to let others vanish—without leaving a verbal record. Poetry is a stubborn art.

the courage to love like a wound that never heals.