how can you look me in the eye and say that poetry can be a bad thing? that there can be escape into it and that this is running from the world? do you know what i used to sink into my skin? do you know how i would inhale the cut-up sidewalk shredded into something that can give me a quick rush with a wintergreen aftertaste? i do not know why i ask if you know because you clearly donât. anachnu praâim beâenecha.
and now iâm left here wondering if iâm the oppressor or the oppressed. and i know i can be both but i feel only like the former. pushing everyone elseâs problems so deep into the ground as i run into my poetry like the guitar or the blade. there are healthier ways to live. i think about all the girls who live between sheet music, thighs holding shredders between them, eyes dim and not at all like starlight. you tear us to pieces. empty another bottle.
why do people think itâs so fun to get drunk? and why do you think itâs so horrid to write? because what i didnât tell you was that i was going to take my life. throw it out the window just like that song from ninth grade. everyone listens to music different than me. i wish i could sing. i wish my guitar was here. then i wouldnât have to write. and i told you i was alright. i told you i was alright.
so letâs finish this song with one last verse. (curse). freakshow takes the stage and all iâve got are the poems weâve written. every girl and i stand together. one thousand hands, one thousand fists, one thousand hours. you will not understand what it means and i donât even want you to. because this is for me and them alone. you do not know the loneliness and heartbreak and love and community of being a woman. razor blades cutting through us like weâre paper. babiesâ hands gripping our throats. breasts cupped in hands and held with love and milk. raw honey slipping down into my stomach to make a home for something. these are all forms of worship.
