1

at the gynecologist’s office she says 

there is a poison circulating through my blood

 

says its chasing the embryonic versions

of my existence like a minotaur in a labyrinth

 

i walk home below dirty rainbows

whirling in the dead-end of my womanhood

 

sleep for endless hours

dream in blue-shaded parables

 

every version of myself meets for the seance

argues over the provisions of my failures and successes

 

mother, maiden, child, crone

sits arrogantly against the reality of my fresh disposition

 

each pointing her finger at the other 

unable to admit shame over my new set of consequences

2

he’s to blame 

the nigga who poisoned me 

and the other one 

who borrowed my innocence, traded it for a bump of cocaine

and the other one 

who mirrored me as victim to our own addictions 

and the other one 

who groped me at the afterhours

and the other one 

who was too afraid to love me out loud 

and the other one

who was looking for his mother in my pussy

and the other one

who deemed my body a play chess on pleasure island

the nigga who needs to read this 

isn’t even apt to be on this page 

my whole life

i’ve just been talking to dirty walls

i’d smear my period blood 

and enscribe “free” for fun

but realized that dying was the only thing 

i really agreed upon when i came into

this weird ass plane

this revolving door of contradictions

this ongoing diatribe 

of avoiding all the ways this life can end

i know i’m on my way out 

i exited stage left before my first cue

my life is now a monologue of deep mourning:

prolonged sobs echoing into a chamber of infinity and doubt

i will no longer keep this rage locked inside my belly

and what happens when the cage is sick 

of coveting me as catatonic

and what happens when i get bold enough to stick

my head above the clouds, admit that a sunny day cost a penny too many

and what happens when i tell him my womb doesn’t work

i guess it forgot to be the it god designed me never to be

the niggas who needs to read this 

branded me a “nigga-making machine”

they want revolution but play cog in the utility belt 

of men that gang bang mother earth 

they parade around as moral men 

*fathers to generations of goddesses downgraded to sex-slaves

*boys disguised as warriors who placate their failed gender with their miniscule dicks

*poets brooding through their cities held prisoner to their transient thoughts 

they plant polluted seeds populating thirsty minds 

and then laugh at the parable of consent 

deem it a wayward idiom of the very thing 

they claim they want they never had

man…

my pussy is metastasized into a doorway of consecutive non-believers 

she finds truth in a psyche that’s lost its grip 

her name: none 

her language: barely

the hour: wedged 

the gag: their semen sliding into two day old panties 

each droplet seeps into a stain of thorns and petals 

bushed at the opening of her now pursed lips

the moisture is fixed and mumbles only at the crossing of legs

only at the entrance of his name 

ozymandias

conquering time with a fever snatching 

grains of sands conquering upwards 

inhaling storms 

eddies of indecision 

to give birth brooding bubbling

berating in fantasies

friction in creating life 

mothering to dictate if it is worth lived 

pendants of slurs highlighting incantations of vastness

avoiding duration

avoiding dying 

avoiding temptation 

avoiding orgasm 

you thought climax would be the next word 

you think wet is a testimony 

you think hard thinking did little for the heart

frantically focused fermenting the fester of fruit 

my pussy

it clamps down 

it bites until bruised 

it writes letters to strangers 

it venus fly traps men who smile pearls in bright rooms 

it kisses foreign men in dark alleyways 

it’s determined to deepen my madness 

permeate until sacred 

sacrifice and then leech off the excess

that bleeds for the full moon every month 

making bastards out men’s strongest soldiers

3

a message from the ancestors:

this is not your fault 

but it is your responsibility to heal through

let the tears you cry sting like acid 

instead i popped a tab on califia’s island 

and heard the sirens cry from the river banks

my friend

she heard them too

she was more eager than me 

to dive into a divine death

 

 i convinced her that drowning 

was the event that was already taking place 

convinced her that they weren’t beckoning for her to join them 

convinced her to hear their lullaby

as offering 

as reconciliation