Tag: language

*a letter to my mother

because this is the nature of our dance
I step out of time and then you yank me into place
to always feel hunted,
because my earrings, junk shop, metal, painted teal and gold
offend you and still 
my thoughts are too silent for you to grasp 
and my denim is ripped, and my eyes are kohl rimmed and aside from 
liner I wear no other makeup and I am too much gypsy punk for 
your boomer aesthetic
and I collect degrees like magazine coupons
so you can be proud 
though my bank account is in arrears and 
yes of course I am still 
not good enough

because I have spent years stripping the interior of my skull
removing thoughts that were not my own with scraper and acetone and forever chemicals 
that may one day command my cells to grow uncontrolled
because my heart is smeared 
across the brass bedframe you slammed
me against and I am too weak
too shameless 
to wipe away my own blood 
and I am still searching for cleavers that you hid around the house
or that kitchen knife for boning chicken and cutting pork
when you invited me to die with you
and I was only 7, maybe 8-

and because maybe you knew 
and maybe you didn’t
anyway, I forgive you, I forgive you
because how would you know, really know 
even though there were whispers and warnings 
but he always took me in the shadows cast by 1970s home décor
a crystal green disco ball that cast lurid pools 
contracting with the edges to never tell
so how could you know
about that architecture 
that interior aesthetic
breaking a child against the canary yellow walls
beige carpet/
tan bedpost/
cream door frame/ teak bed head
pink satin coverlet he held me down upon until
I finally screamed but by then I had fractured into carbon
and nobody listens when dust begins to speak

because you loathe me even though the science says 
a child alters its mother in the womb
chimera cells so the mother is also child
because this is how I speak now and do you remember
the gaffer tape plastered on my mouth, my arms, legs, torso
bound tight with orange sisal rope for tying boar and game
and because it started then, the words filling up 
the cavities in my mouth, the hollows of my throat
and I couldn’t speak or move
eventually the words leaked through my skin
lacerating into scar tissue and cigarette burn craters
and though I couldn’t speak I learned to write
I couldn’t stop writing
because you said ‘what can I say you are/ what profession/what worth’
when I studied literature instead of law,
because what can you say I am?
I cannot stop writing/ is all I am
I am simile/syllable/syntax
I scribble into voluminous sound
my fingers are always screaming.