After midnight Doubt seeps in though the gaps around my air conditioner
and comes to join me on the couch
Bathed in the mummifying haze of blue electric static
He wraps an arm around my shoulder
tips my head back
and kisses me full of fear.
A curse of curves ties my hands behind my back;
twists my ankles together,
leaves me gagged in an attic somewhere.
Men of varying pedigree climb the stairs
to rub my lamp-like hips
and whisper their interpretation of affirmation,
willing these chains off for at least a moment,
to take for granted a wish.
— Janine Serioux
Why must you be a child all the time? With those dark, knowing eyes and just-five-more-minutes-please smile. Can’t you see that I’m tired? I don’t have the time to play with you. Maybe Tanya and Tina let you get away with it but I’m not one of your little friends. Yet you still try to sneak your way into my bed When will you outgrow this phase? Creeping fingers caught in the cookie jar and all my…
Why do you hate the rain?
Who told you it would always be sunny?
How do you sustain a life in extreme?
When will you learn, green things must be earned?
Congratulations on attaining this peculiar disability. Forgive my morbidity but, tell me, what does my skin look like sans color? Since I am no longer black to you I could not be grey either, since grey is a color too. Perhaps you see me as truly colorless,a shape-shifter like water or air? But even then, when the light bends through me is it like looking through glass? Am I to be just as…
Some say small women can get away with wearing less. Slim steel limbs and bud nipples on trim ribcages, Skin fitted close like armor. Their bodies hold a different revolt That can be smuggled neatly in size 6 jeans. They wage war in seed, planted within the walls of convention. Then there are women like me With thighs broad and lapping like riverbeds, The body of a tree, branches bowed heavy…
2 cups Epsom salt ¼ cup baking soda 2 tablespoons dried lavender 2 teaspoons olive oil 5 drops peppermint oil Stir to combine. Fill a tub, a bucket, a sink, a bowl, a glass, a thimble, with water as warm as you can stand. Pour in the salt and stir. Submerge your body and soak until your fingers prune and the water clouds with your doubt, fears, and anxiety. Touch every inch of the body that…
