fingernails (from 10/23/16)

 i once read a story on the train

about a woman and her lover

with dirty fingernails

she said she couldn’t explain it

she wanted to feel 

the way a hangnail feels

when thrust into the darkness

like a seed.

that day when i got home

i took a tweezer and each grain beneath each bed.

the dandelions sprouted first

each leaf left inky shadows on my stomach

small covered paths for ants or eyes to wander 

the blossoms curved around my nose 

and pressed their wispy petals to my cheeks

my skin abloom with pink, with orange-red

the roots criss-crossed my soles like veins 

and quivered with each heart-beat.

i left my suit of armor made of nails  

it clanged against the bedroom’s wooden floor

the earth beneath each crescent moon too large 

to fit the whole of me

all thrust into the darkness

like a 

seed.

my heart is the storm  

with dirt on my knees 

some news is too much to hold 

I turn into rain  

~~~

mi corazón es la tormenta  

tierra rodillas 

no aguanto la nueva 

vuelvo en lluvia

this is what it's about isn't it?

children grow inside us like daffodils

unfurling making life

this is what it is about, you

on the sidewalk wondering about your own opinion, you

not realizing that

daffodils can grow inside my stomach

that i can pick them if i want to that

you do not get to choose if they flower or if they choke me

this is what it is all about

changed lives (not yours)

this is what it is all about

your morality making a decision that determines someone else's existence (not yours)

this is what it is all about

i am not made

to make children

that is not my only purpose

this is what it is all about

we are past should 

we are past maybe if

we are at the point with fingers on the stem

do you not think i know it is painful to pick?

do you think any of this is to say, it is easy

you did not see her body as it curved

into his in the stairwell

you did not see her bent head like the 

drooping head of a daffodil

you did not see the other life she chose for herself

you did not see the other life she was given

you did not see her bloom

this is what it is all about.

outside my window

the birds chirp so loud

screaming with laughter

yelling at each other

heckling going about their business buying seeds

on the corner from one house to another

from one alcove to another

letting themselves sing

black love is forever

black love is forever

like the dirt kissing you everywhere

you could never asked to be kissed

it is not black

and soul sucking

tormenting in a self-satisfactory 

way

it says i will love you

and i will never understand

let's pretend

i.

these days i do a lot of pretending 

it feels sometimes like i fool myself enough to believe

that it is real (but then i catch myself in fear)

i pretend to work, i pretend to know what i am doing, i pretend

to go grocery shopping (i'm very good at it by now, i pick things up

and put them down, i put them in my cart, i do not ask any questions,

and i bring them all home and set them on the shelf).

i pretend to sleep. i pretend to be a grown up. i pretend to have it

all figured out or more often i pretend that i do not have a clue and that is 

an act i am so good at that even i don't know i'm pretending.

ii.

other times, we pretend

spinning cotton candy silks, tasting sugar with our eyes

we change our voices, we say things that do not make sense

and it is delightful! how little sense they make

we are other people we are ourselves we are each other

until life knocks on the door

and comes back in

iii.

prae tendere

before stretch

stretch the truth out like a piece of bubble gum

the gaping holes only a millimeter thick

from your mouth to mine

iv.

in pretending 

there is confidence

there is a path

to not pretend

thursday

from my work table I can hear the sounds of a rooftop playground

all day long—cheering, screaming, laughing—yeah we did it, 

oh no! good job guys that was amazing, okay that's time

(and then it begins again, and again, and again)

all day children playing - I think the noise must be good for your soul

even if it's loud, even if it is a background not curated by spotify

it takes me to this summer recording House the delighted screams 

just right at the right moment 

next door someone in the jazz band does his scales

how inaccessible and reachable the past

how foolish to deny the existence of a righteous god

 this morning, the honey is inching slowly

I look away and when I look back

it is on the precipice, there

I reach out my spoon - still 

                                            I must wait longer

                        

                                what would it be like to live days

                                thinking not do I have covid? but I

                                do not have covid

the banana is already ripe

I looked away and time overtook it

I wrestle with myself - should I eat the 

less ripe half now and enjoy it?

or eat the spoiled half today knowing tomorrow

the other will be the same

                                    like the beatles in their studio themselves

                                    and not themselves, together and not together,

                                    playing and being serious, cigarettes and tea

                                    inspiring a generation of misspellings

already I wonder how I will be perceived

already I try to angle myself: I am smarter than you

                                       like realizing the similarity between my second grade teacher

                                        and a friend I made in college - how despite distance, time, situation,

                                        they are the same, their humor, their voice, their motherly ambition (my motherly ambition)

what would it mean to have faith

to believe in one and infinity?

                                        

                                            even knocked out flat crying in a headscarf in my dream

                                            the truth: it's called faith for a reason