#talichaj

Wow, it's been years since I've been on tumblr. Am I making my return for good? Who knows, but I'm excited to check it all out again.

Join me Monday evening for a night of poems about identity! I'll be in the company of several other amazing writers sharing work about who we are! I hope to see you there! More info below:

My 10 Commandments

1. Thou shalt not hide anymore empty wine bottles in trophy cases beneath the bed, at the bottom of the laundry hamper, tucked between the comforter and sheet. You have started to drink more than you feel these days. It is a lulling alternative. It keeps you from panicking about the way you’ve been craving more popped corks.

2. Thou shalt not fuck him again. You always offer the whole of your supple body to He Who Only Wants A Soft Place To Hold His Hardness. Your body is more than a warm mouth meant to suck the salt from his flesh.

3. Think of thy mother often. Remember that she taught you as a child how to make wishes on the wings of dandelions. Now, her memory is a garden of yellow, blossoming in your chest.  

4. Let the secret of your sixteenth year be an ink spill. Graffiti his touch on every billboard in his city, tag his neighbors doors, the ceiling on his wife’s side of the bed. Do not strip the truth from the canvas of your flesh, it is an ugly work of art, but it is yours.

5. Thou shalt no longer fear being loved and the way that means to be an open airway, drawing in that which will sustain this timid heart. You have been holding your breath since 2008. Breathe.

6. Learn thy stretch marks. You have always taught the flesh on your body that it needs to be quieter, willed it to be more subtle, less fabric. This skin has wondered what a body that has never shaken a staircase or popped seams in a fitting room feels like. This body is heavy. This body has been waiting for you to be strong enough to carry its weight. This body says learn to love these god damn stretch marks. This body has learned to love its loud. This body is waiting for you to stop walking so softly.

7. Thou shalt not feel like a whore for having casual sex. Be unashamed of the way your hips have been the slow curl of smoke rising from the flame of his, or her naked. You have given your moans and amens to tongues that have not loved more than the way you come for them. And oh, how you have loved nothing more than to show up.

8. Try not to lose thy mind. At thirteen, a psychologist declared you clinically depressed. You have spent every year since, trying to flee from the thing that taught you how to run in the first place. You have been so scared of what happens to the mind when it tires of being normal. Do not waste anymore imagination on this. Stop running.

9. Thou shalt not feel like less of a woman for not wanting to be a mother. It does not matter why you have made this decision. It is not a debate. You have made a choice that some may call selfish. Many will cluck their tongues at you, a reprimand, for not doing a woman’s work. You still vagina, still nurturer, still woman. Always woman.

10. Thou shalt not exercise the right to remain silent. You have always kept your voice and opinions apart, afraid of the ruckus they’d create. Have been uneasy around conflict. You are finally understanding how to brave, how to say no, how to call an injustice by its name without a flinch. You have witnessed too many wailing mothers on the news to believe in silence. This is the part where you start voicing your opinions.

So this is a poem I wrote a few years back that I thought I'd share with you guys. It's called "Not Easily Loved". Anyways, hope you guys enjoy it, if so feel free to like and share it :)

Weakly I lift my eyes to yours and defy you,

I dare you to dive into the ocean of my being 

And not drown in my sorrows but drain me of them.

I challenge your knowledge of what you have gotten yourself into

By attempting to love me and scoff at the ego you must have 

For thinking you could succeed at such a task. 

What makes you think that you could just love me,

And that would be all that there is to it? 

It isn’t easy to love me, 

Not when your trying to peel back the layers upon my chest of charred skin,

Crack through the steel infused bone and 

Penetrate the solidified muscle that is my heart. 

It isn’t easy to love me when 

You have to piece back together the scattered shards of my broken trust 

That have left my own hands slashed and wounded.

And it isn’t easy to love me when 

You have to fade the scars and bruises 

That leave my soul a battered black and blue hue

When the black and blue soaks straight through past the core.

Like I said it isn’t easy to love me. 

But your eyes lock onto mine and accept the challenge thrown your way. 

And you plunge into me, ripping away the insecurities 

That have seeped deeply into me 

Leaving me feeling stripped and naked though fully clothed in your presence. 

You seek out the vulnerable components of my being, 

Build a foundation within me to strengthen those weakness. 

You go in pursuit of my fears and hold them captive 

Until they agree to dissipate quietly and without force. 

You lift the weight of hopelessness from my sore shoulders 

And massage optimism into them. 

Filling my mind with an image of the possibilities for memories that you wish us to make. 

You etch my greatest imaginings onto the insides of my eyelids

In the most beautiful calligraphy 

So when I sleep I have no choice but to have sweet dreams. 

You heal the aches that for so long made it hard to move, 

Hard to breath, hard to just be.

And I lift my eyes to yours and defy you, 

Dare you to hold onto me and never let me go.