Bilingual

These are my words:
You call them nonsense,
gibberish,
gobbledy-gook.
These words are using music,
art,
poetry.
But it is uncivilized,
it isn't written down,
you can't read it.
"Use your words."
No, use your words.

 

Burden

Like a father,
he beats his children,
he calls them names
and tells them he loves them.
Like a father,
he lets his brothers touch them,
he lets his brothers rape them.
Like a father,
he yells when he doesn't understand,
he steals their words and secrets.
Like a father,
he crafts them in his own image,
he tears them down and only lets them grow
in ways he deems appropriate.
Like a father,
he teaches them to love him,
and they learn to hate him.
Like a father,
he hurts them and whispers,
"This is for your own good."

Today we have poems about colonialism. And possibly childhood. But also, and mostly, colonialism. YAY!

Eulogy for Soft Hips

I wish you still knew
that you were the one
who got away
That I still dream
of your curves
That you were going to be
the one
all my heroines were based on
But you conspired with them
to take away
one more curvaceous beauty
from the world

And you disappear
wrapped up
in the narcissism of
your appetite
So I disappear
into the narcissism of
art
Observing my chest
and the way my thighs jiggle
And I let your buxom beauty
slip away
like you let it
slip away
Obsessed with thinness
and the unnatural
lies they sold you

I wish you still knew
that you used to be beautiful.