This is a poem about guns
this is a poem about guns
this is another poem about guns.

This
is a poem about the perpetrator
this is a poem about the perpetrator
this is another poem about the perpetrator
this
is another perpetrator.

This is a poem about the victims
this is a poem about the victims
this is another poem about the victims
turned heroes
but still victims.

This
is a poem about the right to bear arms
about children
being shot in the arms
in the back
in the head
this
this is a poem about the dead
this is another poem about the dead.

This
is a poem about the survivors
about surviving
about needing to survive
about being trained to hide
this is a poem about desks
chairs
covered windows
this is
a lock down
this is a poem about another lock down.

This is a poem about the Second Amendment
the right to bear arms
responsible gun owners
this is poem...

This land is your land
This land is
your land
From the California
To the New York island
From the…
To the….
This land was made for you and
You and
You and

Scene
It is the year 2019
I stand in a school auditorium
Amidst immigrant and ESL students
They could not keep quiet today
Teacher, expresses her disappointment
Looks stage right
Mr Adams
Do you have anything you’d like to say?

Mr Adams
tells us “you just don’t know what you want.”
and true
our youthful bones
sit silently in the unknowingness
in the
future is still ahead of us
in the
still trying to learn Mr Adams’ language
kind of sense
no
we don’t know what we want.

Mr Adams
tells us “you don’t know how to treat your freedom.”
and true
see Mr Adams
we are still looking for it
searching between home country
and this land
which you call yours
laced in all of your whiteness
see
how our accents mean that...

and in this way
I will rid myself of everything you have touched
much like my skin
which produces new cells
but me
how I love to speed up the process
tear it open and let it breathe fresh air
peel myself
over
and
over
and
over
but my hair
is not renewed
is just timeline
runs passed my shoulders
and I wonder
when was the last time your finger tips felt these roots?
Tried to pry them out of me?
It was not yesterday
or the day before that
or the day before that
or the day before that
so I measure
note the closest you’ve come to me is this jaw line
border between body and mind
between silence and screaming
guard of the entry to this voice box
how I’ll cut you away
and how fortunate
that there is not enough of you to hand over to another
your touch will only hit her floor
get mixed with others’ pasts
and I’ll run my hands through fresh strands
know fresh starts...

When the bare bones of family
hold unspoken history
we cough up dust
and wonder why we don’t know how to breathe deep
when space is taken by the past of roots
rotting.

There is one
who will choose to clean her airways
notice all that traps us and decide no more
but it is not easy
to cough for the rest of them.

But there is always that one who thinks that she can.
But she can’t.
And she knows this.
But she tries.

And they are all as innocent as her.

But they won’t believe her.
That these words are all just attempts at healing.
And is it working?
Or is healing breathing deep despite trapped dust?
Must it be cleaned out or swallowed down?

I don’t know.
But I am all dust pan in hand
ready and willing.

When woman becomes witch
she has not learned spells to cast among her lovers
or love her nots
she has become spell book for self
for the love it takes to be alone
she
has separated from father
from needing that which was never hers
and now dives into mother as vessel to her earth
notices spinning planets as birth right
she once again becomes owner of her body
stares at flesh
cuts it open to find she has always been potion
when she says she still loves you
she means she can still cast self in your presence
means
she is no longer fragile
but is malleable
is able to bend at the blow of each wind
she watches flies intently
not for adding corpses to cauldrons
but for learning to cut the air
she is like that now
can dodge all that will not suit her
yet she does not fight back
this does not mean she will choke down
she is not repression
but instead a silent witness
...

You
are like the dress I keep in the back of my closet
hoping
one day it will pour itself down my bones
land just above the floor
no longer drag
picking up all
of that which it does not own
and I do not own
and should not be burdened with its scrubbing and
cleaning
However,
I
have not grown the necessary height for its draping
you
are just like that
have not grown the necessary height for my draping.

You are the dress I keep in the back of my closet
it has not been hemmed despite three years of me saying, “tomorrow,”
it still drags across old floors
clings to dust
and little corpses of the flies I’ll never know
mind you
if I were that type of woman
a pair of heels could lift me high
have me fill its stature
but it is unlike me
so I keep it there
on a hanger
one day I know
I will either have it’s edges hemmed
or let it go.

You
are just like that.

But I,
have...

When the girl has gone quiet
ask her
which piece of her screams
which part of her has become witch
has become conjurer
has morphed to keep stillness among the others
she will lie to you
share only that which she has recited thousands of times before
tell them the same story
you will hear all which would tear another up
but she recites it memorized
emotion
has been drained through her finger tips
she has become witch
or lizard
reptile
she has learned to be snake around the sharpest corners
has watched her skin peel off but has not grown
only become dense.

She is heavy now
though her bones are much more visible
her veins
you’ll want to shoot,
remember,
how quickly that switch could turn to on,
as you looked upon her hands
pulsing
thin bones
you found them so beautiful
as she starved
you found her so beautiful
as she starved.

Began to feed herself,
only in your...

At 18 I was prodded for an ultra sound
Warned the technician
Be gentle
Nothing had entered me of that size
See I was virgin
This was the closest to sex I had come
Held my breath as they told me relax
Wondered where I had to go to find relaxation
on the screen
I saw lines and not ovaries
Thought it witchcraft
Prognosis
Abnormal lining
Prescription
Biopsy.

When they told me biopsy I thought
Further research
Didn’t know this meant
Cutting a piece of the most intimate piece of me out
When I showed up to his office he pushed it aside
Deemed it unnecessary
Not at my age
Didn’t want to put me through the pain
Prescribed 21 days of hormones, 7 of sugar case I break the habit
Called it solution.
I called myself grateful and left
Found something seductive in taking birth control though I wasn’t having sex.

But this was body treated like
like Barbie,
moving down the production...

Sometimes
I can’t look at you
and keep the tears close to me
they run without my pressing
without my pushing
they just show up
stream down this face
be it sand
we have made rivers
my bed has become an ocean
recycling this water back to me
to remind me
how the same moment
can still cause rain
how heavy clouds can’t float forever
and my
aren’t we the darkest storm to enter
these four walls?

When you leave
I pace a kitchen through blurred vision
tell myself
next time
I will bring sunshine
let you see me light
see what warmth I can bring
when I’m not falling victim to patterns
by next time
I have grown fond again of everything we once were
I’ve made you lovely
made me crazy
blamed anxiety
told myself to breathe in every moment I instead wanted to run
but did not trust my feet to take me in the right direction.

So I stood still for you
hoped maybe you’d bring...

Remember when you told yourself you’d write yourself love poems?

Can you write them now,
when rising looks less like before the sun
and more like after 10 am
a body
weening itself off of Nyquil
a mind
no longer knowing if it’s the remnants of a fever
or laziness
can you love yourself either way?

Love yourself 11 am full of nothing done
full of banana pancakes
count how
this is day three of pancakes
grab a banana that is not your own
write a mental IOU
can you love you empty fridge
love I’ll fill it tomorrow.

Love yourself then
nothing to do
see it as loving someone unconditionally
even if that someone is you.

Especially
if that someone is you.

Remember when you said you’d write yourself love poems?

Can you write them eight days into a new year
even when all of this shit already feels old.
As you watch yourself break last year’s promises
made this year’s promises...