On Sunday

On Sunday,

I bought a gumball out of his favorite machine.
put my faith into the rusted attic

And I wrote him into poetry,

into forgiveness,

took away his pain,

made it worth nothing more than the words I dug up to describe it.

I bled him pretty.

Like the black rose that bloomed in the center of his shirt

Thud.

The silence screamed volumes.

Rang like the toll of church bells.

His heart — spilling poetically,

His spine — crumbling down like a palace of cards.

I reincarnated him into a man worthy of forgiveness,

I gave him a home in the cramped alley of my skull,

labeled it Heaven,

Heaven, a gift to the living,

performed autopsies on all nights he did not leave.

The nights where I prayed in the name amen,

I dreamt him walking towards an alley

a gun cocked in his mouth.

The nights where I used to write him godly

I chose words such as righteous, Daddy.

But nicotine has a way of craving sin,

has a way of creating angels out of fathers.

I watched him light his pack like candles before bedtime,

like he was lost without her nightlight,

Her sensation ignited him,

burnt his body up into flames,

Slowly—

Symphonically—

Wrapping him around her arms —He held her,

Romantically,

because she wanted to grow old with him,

Stole him from his lover, his family—

me.

Danced with him under street lights that radiated like

Multicolored malignancies.

He refused to leave her,

Could not live without worshipping her.

She gave him a heaven.

And I gave him hell.

Chose, spit and cursed the kind of words I had to love someone hard enough to learn how to use.

I dreamt you walking towards the alley,

A gun cocked in your own hands.

A rose, blooming in the center of your shift.

Thud.

I dreamt you walking out of your own funeral,

laughing,

I dreamt you here.

If you could, you said,

you would crucify yourself.

Bleed out your sickened self.

Let your body become a church again —

Holy.

Reincarnate into a man worthy of my forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the sweater I can finally fit into.

On Sunday,

I bought a gumball out of your favorite machine.

I stuffed it into my pocket, my mouth, the bottom of your bed.

Its sweetness danced on the tippee toes of my tongue,

cheated hopscotch with two feet,

just the way you taught me how.

It tasted like a gift from you.

Not today

Tomorrow,

There is something fearful about the promise of tomorrow, 

Tomorrow, 

I will re-open my faith I've once buried next to the shelf where I stored my pride, 

I will put out this house fire of a home, 

I will buy my mother flowers,
real flowers,
I will watch her mouth curve its way into the type of beauty only sunrise offers, 

I will learn to hold this stubborn tongue, 

carve thank yous in the place of insults, 

I will leave my broken yesterdays, 

stop performing autopsies on unwelcomed disappointment, 

stop recreating what I should have done, 

I will give myself a tomorrow, 

but not today, 

not today. 

Half of the Sky by Emily Mao

And we wrote her into poetry,

Took away her pain, her story,

Made it worth nothing more than the words we dug up to describe it.

We bled her pretty,

Like a hummingbird,  

We bled her gentle,

Like the rose that bloomed across the center of her shirt,

The familiar figure of her shadow traced —

On bed sheets, buses, rivers, across streets in Nepal,

By men who picked her to play their Eden,

Spread her body into a paper angel,

We watched

And we told her to cry,

But cry beautifully,

Cry silently.

We never killed the bird,

But we silenced her song,

Seeked comfort more than we desired to carry her up —  to change a world,

So we left her heart — spilling poetically,

We left her body — crumbling down like a palace of cards,

We closed our eyes  — as half of the sky fell out.

If poetry was my mother

.

I used to color portraits of you, 

in yellow, 

marigolds blossoming after winter, 

you brought me to life. 

I used to cling towards your warmth, 

red, 

flicked

the pit in my stomach, hungry, 

I fed off your ink that spilled, 

like cool cool water in my heat

drowned myself in your coolness,
your coolness, 

catharsis, 

I am always heat. Heat.

I am red, shot temperated, shot steam, 

you took care of me. 

But Mother theres a famine in my mind, 

It is hot. It is hot. 

You can no longer quench it. 

Happpy

Yesterday I bought a gumball
out of the machine.
It came out pink, but I referred red,
I stuffed it into my pocket, then into my mouth, onto the bottom of my chair,
its taste danced on its tippee toes, pirouettes
playing hopscotch with my heart.
I laughed, like it was Christmas in September.

I am afraid of poetry

I am afraid of poetry,
I no longer crave its existence,

I am scared of its existance

afraid of its silence

poetry breaks me-

I am collapsing--

a pit, a pile of bones, 

empty,

afraid of spilling metaphors that remain nothing more than the words I give it, 

there is a storm in my mind--

I am falling. 

Poetry, 

the reason he tosses off his seatbelt, does not fear the crash

why she dives into an ocean so big she becomes it, 

Poetry leaves me crumbling, tossed into the fire, dissolving into the empty air above, 

But I suppose I am just too broken to make sense, meaning out of anything, make poetry

Poetry is the sky above me, heavy, surrounding me,   

chaining me down under heavy train tracks 

And 

I can,

I can, 

I can, 

I can --

but the floor of the sky fell out. 

girl

girl, mouth as cold as silence, 

more terrified of cursing strangers than family,  

spits words out of her steamed tongue,

crafted to carry hurt heavier than forgiveness, 

tears apart her mother's arguments, 

with the kind of insults she had to love someone hard enough to learn how to use, 

to be unmoved, just okay with her destruction.