When the women joined our course, ranging in age from twenty one to thirty five, they came at varying points in their writing practice. They came as strangers, excited and a bit fearful for what may be presented, and what may arrive and erupt. The day before they began, I sent them this description: Digging Deep, Facing Self is a month long deep dive into our painful memories, fears, long held beliefs about self, and how we can transform these experiences into power and confidence. Through reading, writing prompts, action steps, reflection and sharing the journey within a safe space of women, we uncover the elusive how. This course is for women who are both writers by passion, and women who have never dared keep a journal tucked into their nightstand. The exercises have entry points for building a solid portfolio of honest writing, and also for private and sacred self examination. There is no requirement to sign up, no writerly title you must hold, no prerequisite aside from a dedication to yourself. With our many reasons for approaching this work, one thing is certain: you will emerge from our 30 days together more open, on surer footing, with a greater sense of self and purpose, a strong understanding of how to face each day with confidence and anticipation of joyful growth, and, of course, a great batch of writing. Whether you chose to take that writing outside our small circle is entirely up to you. As with any journey we undertake in life, we get out of it what we put in. I have provided the tools, share my own inspiration and help kick start the process into motion. The real work will occur when you step out of your skin, peel back the layers and look unflinchingly in the mirror of your
own written words. Honesty will get you everywhere in this program, and the best part? You only have to be honest with yourself and the handful of women here on the same journey. Here is where the pain blossoms into beauty. Here is where we begin to reshape how we see ourselves and interact with the world. Oh, and commitment is important. Otherwise, why bother? To say our second round of the course was filled with fantastic new voices would be a vast understatement. Our ladies were as diverse and fiery as they come, including a sci-fi novelist, a creative coach, a yoga instructor, new mamas, long time mamas, an undocumented youth advocate, a musician, college students, and even a woman who used to be a high school student where I once taught for four years! As you read, you’ll encounter all the nuances of their lives, trials, joys and an immense pulsing gratitude for the daily journey. And I think it is safe to say each lady can now boldly claim the title of poet. Many women told me they joined the course saddled by fear - anxieties about not being good enough writers, worry over not making time to engage with the materials, money, of course. After our thirty days each proclaimed a major shift in thinking about self, time, capabilities and abundance. They made it through - and they did the hard work. What a gift to witness! These poems are also poems of witness, proving that our lives are ripe for plucking out stories of transformative self discovery and change. The most profound part of this journey for me is always watching our participants uplift and support one another as they post poems in our private group. A collective dynamic is a powerful one - pushing the women up and out of their comfort zone time and time again to be met with a kind nest of loving response. It is important to note that while this course provides light editing tips, the work is mainly generative - the objective is to shine light into dark corners of the spirit while simultaneously filling notebooks into fat cats. The poems contained in these pages are first drafts and should be read as such: the raw, unedited, exclaiming voices of women in motion. And there is something magnetic and powerful about absorbing work in this state - it is resoundingly honest. I expect the reception of their words to be as uplifting, kind and gentle as our course nest was. Reading, you can’t help but admire the guts of these fierce women. Special and tremendous thanks to each of our bold women - I am beyond-words proud of each of you - and a warm hug to our course Teaching Assistant Melinda Gonzalez. Rock on my beloveds! May this process continue, and may you spread your new confidence and light around the world! And to you, dear reader, I suspect you may become just a slightly better version of yourself having read this e-book. After all, in the face of other’s bravery, our light grows, too. Share this book with everyone you know. Allow them to also grow brighter. With love & poems, Caits P.S. Join us in the next round of Digging Deep, Facing Self by visiting www.caitsmeissner.com/course
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. letters for my brothers by juju angeles 2. dear juju, by juju angeles 3. Calling Cards by Sonia Guinansaca 4. Super Goddess by Sonia Guinansaca 5. Eradicating Envy/Uplifting Women by Elizabeth Corcoran 6. Stepping Out of the Victim Role by Elizabeth Corcoran 7. Big Sur by Boyuan Gao 8. Yesterday’s Terracotta by Boyuan Gao 9. Portrait One by Kimberly Marks 10. Freeway by Kimberly Marks 11. We Become Real by Maiga Milbourne 12. White is the Absence of Color by Maiga Milbourne 13. Eradicating Envy by Sabina Ibarrola 14. Hauntings by Sabina Ibarrola 15. Herpes Type I by Yolandri Vargas 16. Hungry and Homelessness by Yolandri Vargas 17. 14:7 by Safiya Lux 18. First Psalm by Safiya Lux 19. Medical Honey by Tina Stumpf 20. The Have-Nots by Tina Stumpf 21. A Celebration by Diana Quiñones 22. A Praise Poem by Diana Quiñones 23. untitled by Nora Ritchie 24. Catching A Ghost by Nora Ritchie
LETTERS FOR MY BROTHERS juju angeles Is there a bridge between our voices Smoke above our heads A sky between our siblinghood? Has time made us mountains Leaving the valley of mama’s womb Piling up the dust silently? Am I a home for a familiar silence? The traumas called ghost The ones I’ve buried under fields of tongue Am I the only one? A spiny map of epidermis Crossing the palmed weathered rivers Tracing the North Star with guts I am of their bodies Ashen stars connected by smoke The sunken ship of cheekbones Face full of rain A pillaged womb Nursed with blood & shackled breasts We were only meant to survive To take the dirt & harvest food To drain blood & drink rosary To grow of this earth what is not ours —or our children’s This is how my mothers learned to be loved With locked elbows anchoring their bodies As they are laid out to dry And our fathers watched, learned to love us By leaving our laboring screams that hollowed them And pierced through the woods
DEAR JUJU, juju angeles The brewing magician of her life The one who has taken Another’s healing over her own What will you make now Now, that he has gone Packed his life on a plane And made himself ghost You are constantly creating Turning sweaty sheets into poems A messy bed into an art form This is how you carry your lovers Into silence over your own The calendar hangs with last month’s notes And you wont let these walls move on Can’t distinguish the clean clothes with ones Already worn And although you wont let the world see you Your curtains are sheer toned Always welcoming the light’s sky & the neighbors Eyes in splotches It is their wordlessness you are after The ones you won’t own. www.jujuthepoet.com
CALLING CARDS Sonia Guinansaca I. Across oceans and land Working to connect one phone line with another Like the umbilical cord of a child Calling cards have heart beats We are made of phone lines A cycle of dialing numbers On the other line waited abuela On the other line waited birthday wishes that you should have given us in person while you ate cake with us, first day of school stories of stolen lunch box that are more funnier if told in person as you walked us home, blessings for New Year’s Eve that could have been more divine if you could have hugged Dad, your doctor’s appointment that you accidently forgot but still our fault because we should have been there to take you But we were here and you were there. On the other line we waited For your voice That is all we had My dad waited for you He still does II. How do you dial a love one? When your fingers have worn out from weaving too many memories When your voice has change since the last time you saw them in person Your bones have broken from their absence Your lips have withered Your face is the only clue left of what they might look like now Perhaps it’s best to not look in the mirror Perhaps you are too ashamed of holding on to old memories III. I can still hear Abuelita Alegria’s voice Tell me abuelita how is Ecuador? Yes abuelita I promise to return And then a long pause You hear her shuffling the phone trying to remember which side to talk from She is not familiar with this technology I call it old school, some call it poverty
Her gentle voice rocks me back to memories of when she carried me as a baby My face lays flat on her back She hangs up And I lay gripping on to her words Trying not to let go Never enough minutes IV. Calling cards don’t have heart beats anymore They just hang in the store Teasing you My dad stops at the bodega for other reasons His mouth curls up at the end of the bottle Longing for one more conversation I think he believes that with every beer he gets closer to heaven Closer to her And secretly I wished that was true The phone goes unused like the passport in my wallet No more dialing In his palms rests spaces where my grandma is buried And even then the borders created by the lines in his hands Restrict him from getting too close Dad sometimes holds my hand But mostly we look at each other hoping to find comfort He says I look like abuela
SUPER GODDESS Sonia Guinansaca Who said little girls with braids couldn’t grow up to be superheroes? Today at 5’2 this body is build stronger than any NY skyscraper I was not build out of Eve and Adam; I am too divine to be a duplicate These thick thighs and arms were constructed in galaxies and enhanced in mother’s womb I am my mother’s daughter That means my tongue lashes out against anything that tries to tame it This is how women from the Andes resist This is how Indigenous women are My skin and mouth glow so much it shames the New York skylights Like every superhero my super weapon is this hair This black hair like the Guayllabamba River never tangled always flowing free Pitch black like the nights found in deserts trying to cross Pitch black like those first couple of nights you were learning how to sleep on your own But you were never alone, I was there I am everywhere Because I am a Super Goddess And no, I do not have a theme song Too hip to be confined to one song I’m from Harlem so when you see me flying by you will hear drums, the sinku, and every hip hop mix tape found in the basement saying “fuck the industry”. And no, I do not pose with my arms crossed like Superman I always have my power fist in the air like Angela And as much as I wish I could sing like Nina I can only be found dancing in my room like the girl from the intro of Living Single I’m a transnational superhero My thrones are in Ecuador and NY I fly over borders Kryptonite is not my weakness. And my ending has not been written by Jerry Siegel And my story is not found in DC comics My journey is too sacred to be defined by men My legacy will live in the mouths of little girls who sit in their living room chair Facing the window as their mothers braid their hair Who said little girls with braids couldn’t grow up to be superheroes? soniaguinansaca.tumblr.com
ERADICATING ENVY/UPLIFTING WOMEN Elizabeth Corcoran Awakening first, You warm the ground and the grass For us to roll our bodies in. Twisting and stretching In wildflowers, bouquets of peony. You beckon us to bathe In the timeless laguna. Thriving off of turquoise; We learn to feast on color too. Talk trails the flame dipping out of view. At dusk you light candles for the livingFor us. The moon is God tonight. You have led us here. Water mirrors mountain; We count two cathedrals in the darkness.
STEPPING OUT OF THE VICTIM ROLE Elizabeth Corcoran Those three words I’ve done it again He, No stone for stepping, I wade chin deep. But no man of mine Plays to unsung love Gagged on my own medicine Drowning every taste bud Octopus takes prey, Surrounding, sticking, shrinking Of tongue Muted, mutation Of me At first meeting Under the spell of possibility Alluring disregard I. A bone once broken Now grown unsteady. Confidence asthmatic Stumbling in stiletto spirituality. Wishbone future And visionA bird, without wings, only feathers in the wind. II. Out of gravity and music I grow the legs of a mountain woman And braids, vines, from which the samurai swing. Birthing breaths, moans, cries of ecstasy, Wise and full Flood rushing, life giving, Soaring eagle flight. Band of horses Fire under hooves, Gaining, growing, advancing A stampede of 1,000 drummers, I jump and dance and jump and dance and
jump and dance. And when I can jump and dance no more I stop. And observe what remains.
BIG SUR Boyuan Gao Her cheekbones-soft lines like the earth’s curvature. A world of ocean underneath a winding precipice at Big Sur off of Highway 1. I camped out there one night with a group of strangers on the property of a famous artist, through the redwood and glass mansion, up a winding staircase, into a jungle, at the clearing sitting on top of a hill surrounded by avocado and lemon trees. We slept on a trampoline, and disappeared the next morning without goodbyes. The walk of graceful flamingos at dusk, drawn by magnetic pull, as called by the heavens. Her grace an off kilter gaze --a bit more human. She kills a decadent layered cake no utensils. She is a blue lagoon deep below my seat on the aircraft, fluidly dancing between dots of uninhabitable land. She is a fire that can withstand the waters where I am rooted She balances on staggering plates with pearls between her toes, spools of golden ribbons spilling from her crown. She is the smell of distilled jasmine oil at the marketplace, a maiden carried on camelback by a troubadour. She is a young babe nestled between her mother’s breast, and a lambswool blanket. Those young eyes, empty new thirsty for mistakes.
YESTERDAY’S TERRACOTTA Boyuan Gao My mom, and her siblings never enough for seven mouths the abundance of laughter from cat and mouse games Grandmother collected oil in a can Come Chinese New Year, their decadent fried meal served family style 1986: Chinese New Year choking my uncle threatening to pierce my ears with chopsticks, cousins laughing me crying hysterically as mom fed pungent vinegar down my throat to flush down the bone. At three, I had a recurring dream that my parents and I were being pursued by men on horseback. They chased us through the mountains, inside of a temple in search for the magic peach in our possession. GrandfathersMother’s father: thousands of photographs burned in the name of revolution pressed deep inside the earth with his bones and all of the faces from his village. Father’s father: red army general, rotting from own tree branch marked “traitor” Their wives broken. Decades later, walking down hidden dirt streets of what used to be known as the “hutongs” in the middle of a new metropolis built on top of what is ashen and grey beneath the new paved concrete Thousands of horses and solemn soldiers lining a path for the emperor one of the oldest cities of human civilization formerly named Chang An–Eternal Peace That is what they named my father.
PORTRAIT ONE Kimberly Marks When I was 14 i carved F-A-T just above my belly button crossed the A twice it was a promise to myself that one day I would wrap my hands around my waist to touch each thumb to index finger In class I sucked on children’s vitamins ate two to four spoonfuls of Cream of Wheat in a day by sixteen my left arm was a tree trunk dug into by an angry bear notches on a post counting long years of solitude train tracks of cartilage thick scars film pulling taught on sour milk It was a ritual of red roots and branches dripping the blood-orange sun in me finally emanating rusted flakes delicately cleaned pink carnations bloomed under every loosened scab one day I learned the most popular girl in high school had scars from every ankle to knee in a stalled car a friend pulled up her shirt to show me smoke trails from fire she scratched into the sky Jessica knifed her lovers name down her forearm in 7th grade algebra at age 22 I heard
she left the world by the end of a rope my healer tells me if I want to be in this body I need to listen to the language of my spirit when I do it shows me a bird in my belly pecking at its own feet with eyes made of broken glass that burst with tears at every peck peck peck a child tells a story neon chalk on black construction paper tiny insects moving so fast feet, tiny sticks in the air the giant is large, his mallet heavy we are tiny tiny tiny our hands go deep into a bed of clay and pull out every stone
FREEWAY Kimberly Marks 7 Hour road trips Music was the first measure of time Out of place like Plastic trees under a blinking red sun Father hands his daughter wood pipe worn from army days Puff ghost dragon wheezed into silence He keeps the goods Locked in bedside drawer with his gun nesting one bullet in pod Ms March hangs on pushpin field of clovers spread over sex Smiling teeth to secret rain Daughter sits on leather Phosphoresent truck wide jaw eating blacktop ribbon She opens to speak A serpent falls out Her eyes trail scales and stripes Til space between snakeskin and pupil Is a bent bow Mason jar pool holding paint brushes Mix algae, purple Aster poison you want to drink Eyes of reflection Lure the body in Each face she makes a generation of self She wonders “What is vapor?” That which only thought can hold “What is thought?” That which holds everything They pass in tempo Backdrop for important words proper dimensions Wanting to be shapeless
Headlight halos lead the lost farther gone small town sticks to treadmill landscapes Where a brother looks on The hand of a sibling Resting on lover’s naked thigh dive in deep silk Never to find ruby tendon or porous chalk of bone Aura moons burst Her chin points to Riverbeds in the sky The earth looked like this once Volcano spewing photosynthesis Soot over the Atlantic Seaweed forming turtle underbelly Road side feathers Warm gasoline wind A barn owl taps his stone claw Against the plastic ledge of human mind
WE BECOME REAL Maiga Milbourne I. There are portraits of hollowed out washed out worn out women whose eyes follow little girls Their canvas edges fray the paint rips up towards sticky fingers and then fades against dusty light Lift them off the wall and find a geometry of clean against the dark of exposed the space left to one day fill II. My photo isn’t there. Walls are filled with a family’s story with open-mouthed laughter and a steady progression of height history. Portrait on a wall of an eight-year old girl in her Easter Sunday dress, hands folded, ankles crossed and a knowing smile knitting eyebrows And then her picture isn’t there III. Sledge-hammer the walls in let plaster fill our lungs break muscle on sweat bust these walls apart
Here’s a match-- light the fire, use the rugs, use the drapes. These pillows will ignite! Down. Break the Governor’s wife’s face over your knee and feed her canvas to the flames, whip photos into hungry light, burn it IV. Hungriest for a woman’s lap. Remember the hours where I jiggled the soft skin under your arm? Remember when I crawled deep and placed small, little girl ear, a tiny shell against the rhythm of your heart? The others-- the men who told us to write it down, to record, to make legacy-- somehow, I can forget them. It’s the women. Their eyes on the wall. Their eyes averted. Their absence. V. Now what can I offer you? I won’t hang on your wall. I’m missing from the photos. I swear though. I swear. I am opening my arms, making space for your ear to press against the steadiness of my heart.
WHITE IS THE ABSENCE OF COLOR Maiga Milbourne The ceiling sweats, the wooden benches sigh, the ample bodies of Brown-skinned women relax and open over towels and high-noted conversation. Laboriously, I pull straps under the cloak of my bathrobe. Lone white girl, body hidden under terry-cloth. Eyes roll, and my caramel-skinned, Cherokee-boned friend asks what I have to hide? “You’re skinny, you’re young. What are you afraid of?” It’s absurd, this body hidden under fabric, and I know. My thighs pool on my towel, they reach like sticky-fingered toddlers for the wall. Pulling locks into a pony-tail, “Look at that ass. If you didn’t have those big thighs you’d like look a marshmallow on toothpicks. You need big thighs to carry that ass.” -------My mother sways her hips. Thick-legged, ample-assed, tiny waist, breasts just enough to fill a palm. Sweet face. The kind of woman you could introduce to your Momma. The kind of woman you could marry. The kind of woman to cause a lynching. She carries that in her body. It came from her grandmother’s body. They gave me my grandmother’s name and her history. Little white girl in Tennessee whose grandfather never learned the childrens’ names. He called them all, “Cracker.” The men dug up sarsaparilla root and brewed drink. She and her sister played on the old slave auction block. No Black person would work for their family. They said that when it rained, the stone bled. My mother still twirls fingers around an imaginary baton, muscle-memory from days as a majorette, wearing the letter jacket of a Southern white boy. A football player, a poet. My mother is a Georgia peach, a Southern Belle, who lost her accent when she married a Yankee lawyer. Her eyes scan a crowd. She knows how to flirt, how to pull the male gaze to her wide hips, her small waist. Her body is a territory, property of upper-class white men. She’s their excuse, their Helen of Troy as war is waged. Her body tells the history of Emmett Till’s, of Black men sacrificed to white rage. -------
I hide my white body in my white robe away from the generous eyes of these eucalyptus-scented Brown women. I put shea butter on my legs. An eyebrow raised, a lilting Ethiopian accent, “You know about shea butter?” Black women have taught me how to care for myself. -------My darkly chocolate girlfriend scans my rosy, tanned face. “I know that women are assaulted, that they have to protect themselves,” she allows, remembering white girlfriends, crossing the street to avoid Black men. “But those Black men could be my brothers.” And I duck from men. Men hissing in Spanish, rolling their hips in German, men in corporate business suits, dark-skinned, light-skinned. A Black father seated on a park bench gathers his son. Child head on father lap. Father gently strokes his son’s locked hair, whispers to him. --------Caramel-skinned, Cherokee-boned, she tells me, “That doesn’t look like a white girl’s ass!” And we laugh in the safe space between us. The space that says, as a white girl, I don’t want to hurt you. As a white girl, I want to stop being so fucking white. “What else is it?” I ask her, myself. If, as she jokes, I have African blood, what is that story? My grandmother told me the slaves didn’t want to leave her family’s Virginia plantation. My grandmother sat cowed in osteoporosis, farting under portraits of white governors and their marriageable women. If I have African blood, did it come from slave owner rapes? Did an ancestor pass? Escape, stay out of the sun, claim whiteness? Bury their parents and their story from our geneaology? Maybe. -------My husband’s family has the same nose. It’s taut, sloped like an arrowhead, sun weathered. I have that nose. My father has that nose and red skin. My grandmother, between her stories of slaves and governors, tells me of our descent from Pocahontas. “You come from
the Powhatan people.” My husband’s family is Virginian too. “You are probably Powhatan too, given the nose.” “Maybe,” he concedes. As a white man, he doesn’t want to steal anything more. ---------The ceiling sweats, the air groans eucalyptus, these Brown-skinned woman inhabit their bodies and sigh into the wooden benches. They move ample hips and make space for my skinny white girl body, with its Powhatan nose, and Black ass. “My grandmother was Cherokee, my grandfather was Black. His mother was a white girl though.” Their ancestors told their stories. They gather their bodies from the pools of blood. They open their robes, breasts sliding down to soft bellies, high-arched feet settling on the cedar floor to make room for slippery thighs. They look at me gently. “What do you have to hide?” www.maigamilbourne.com
vi. warm fleshed out rib cages heave in tune to banter
ERADICATING ENVY Sabina Ibarrola A secret code tattooed across her skin lets you know this woman is magic Heat lightning flashes from her chest And her arms are made of stars and stardust and bicycle grease. Walks like she’s in charge Wears boots like she’s in charge Wears high heels like she’s in charge Rides a motorcycle like she’s in charge. And she is. Good with her hands, a voice you can trust. When the apocalypse comes, she’s the one you’ll want to be stuck with, want to take orders from. Pirate queen with a lover in every port The stuff of legend Force of nature Hair swept up like the tree tops in autumn, flaming leaves against a crisp blue sky, like a movie about what autumn should be. Leather jacketed femme comet blazing across a lonely desert highway She knows where she’s going She’s on her way.
HAUNTINGS Sabina Ibarrola Give thanks for the dark matter of space, for all that we don’t know yet. Give thanks for caves, for sometimes you may happen upon an underground waterfall. Give thanks for being thrown down the well, for at least you will never be thirsty. Give thanks for the dank place beneath the sink, it’s where you keep the clean dish towels, after all. Give thanks for the inside of your mouth, the underside of your tongue, for its warm safe wetness. Give thanks for sparklers clenched between your teeth, their smoky trails lingering For biking home under September sunsets For finally starting to maybe feel a little bit okay For all the times you’ve cried on the subway For the steady open-close of your blood vessels For the reliability of left and right ventricles For the smell of lemons For Riis Beach in July For kisses that bring you back to your body For birthday candles.
HERPES TYPE 1 Yolandri Vargas Those who are infected with any of the two most common types of Herpes virus will never experience love and lust like other people I told myself this after the Gynecologist told me I had an outbreak I believed this after I lost respect and my self value as a woman, as human being So I clung to my Dominican boo thang’s love I felt the need to feel love in his hugs, kisses The way he looked into my eyes Rubbed my mosquito bites instead of scratching I fell in love with his willingness to buy me pineapples and mentol at 4AM His determination to figure out how many stars were looking down at us every night When I asked him to count them with me I told myself that no man would ever love me like he did He accepted tragedy and its aftermath There are many different ways people have been infected But this is an STD Something no one will ever want to be associated with The Instagram memes confirm it On the plane back to my homeland I eliminated oral sex Unprotected sex And promised myself I’d tell the person I may be sexually involved with The Herpes stigma brainwashed me I judged myself and those thoughts dominated my actions I shared my story with few people and realized I failed to think about the possibility that something was put in my drink I was too busy blaming myself for having too much to drink I accepted two weeks worth of agony caused by my first outbreak because I thought I deserved it My shock phase blinded me and prevented me from seeing that I was not given the opportunity to consent to any sexual activity with him I now realize that the people I know just love me All of me As Yoli As a human Love is love As a friend or significant other I am shameful because I allowed Herpes and the stigma it has identify me And attempt to rob me of my happiness.
HUNGRY AND HOMELESSNESS Yolandri Vargas Last night I hopped in a van My heart heavy with fear and hope I didn’t know what to expect And all I could think about was my mother’s strength, bravery, and determination She is a good woman With the sweetest heart I know I remembered filling out all the paper work during my fifth year of school We lined up and waited hours to be placed in a space to stay for the night And since transportation back to the shelter in the Bronx wasn’t provided My mind began to memorize train lines and the stops where connections were available We did this for three nights until finally For a year we would be housed in an official shelter I remember pulling the definition of home from the walls of our old apartment Off the windows The warmth of my bed And off the letter of eviction We took them on this journey with us to keep our hope warm All seven of us women Bill, our driver Boxes full of sandwhiches Two large containers of soup One of coffee And donated clothes Filled the van with humanity for the hungry and homeless Our mission for the night was to provide All we could for these people One individual who had a great impact on me Was a woman She asked, “Midnight Run?” I saw the same look in her eyes as I did in my mother about ten years ago Gratitude For pieces of clothing I had plenty of For food that would finally fill their bellies Coffee that would warm their hands She was so grateful I touched her arm and said you’re welcome I am so grateful I had the opportunity to provide someone with the little things I take for granted I am so grateful for that little bit of shower gel that will keep me clean for another week We drove down the streets of NYC
Witnessed people on the pavement dreaming away And I was so grateful for my dreams The resources and drive I have to pursue them The pillows that cushion my dreams I was grateful for the super cool toothrbush that vibrates and spins My education I have love Laughter Friendship Mentors I have traveled Learned and am still learning Hope and faith in myself sometimes I have doubt that goes away and pays me visits occasionally I had all this warmth And I was so grateful for it The fear and hope I felt initially Melted and stirred itself in my heart Only other humans can warm you up this way.
14:7 Safiya Lux Be grateful for the mind, Be grateful for the body, when the adornments are gone, and they will go, even if just to be polished or replaced. Be grateful for the sun. Be grateful for the moon, when the pillars are gone and you are left, loveless and orphaned, to create your own family. Be a gift to the species, be the compass of the tribe. Remember the Heavens, and all that they taught you. Remember you will return there purified through the fires you couldn’t resist. Remember that some call Nature a mother. She always leaves fruit within your grasp and even when you forget her, she is there words gentle as leaves, kissing your feet, demanding evolution, she is every kind of living thing. She is where you got that tempest mind, that monsoon heart, that lush mouth. Know that your brilliance is borrowed, your resonance is merely her echo. Take pride in that. She is a kind of gorgeous power that makes surviving art, she tells you, “Seed, you can be a thriving thing. You will simply get sweeter and softer with time.” Remember that some call God a Father. There is sea salt in His lessons but honey at His table even you turn away, the whole town calls you Daddy’s little girl, honey became your skin, and they speak centuries long about how they see Him in
the galaxies, your eyes. It is undeniable that He gave you that austere beauty. He is a wisened genius beyond language. You were closest to Him as an infant, back when your heart was still soft. You were unafraid to laugh, and unashamed to cry, but you are still His child. That closed mouth teaches you the unselfishness of listening. His pointers move your heart, retrains them in the skills thoughtless living made you forget. Even in your ignorance, His lessons made a temple out of you, the womb of your mother, and anywhere you’ll ever stand. Soundless, He tells you, “Prepare your apologies, open your palms, prodigal daughter, you can always ask for another tomorrow. Nothing good I can refuse you.” Remember to enjoy the transient taste of sadness, to use hunger to fuel your heart, to learn the politics of discomfort. Tattoo “Abundance is a fact; winter is only a season” onto the insides of your eyelids for the next time you forget. Even your Prophet was once an only child, an orphan. Even your Prophet had to leave the false home in his body, this scattered life. In autumn, nature yields to Higher Law and the world dies in beauty. Deeply know, nothing is yours that you stand to lose.
FIRST PSALM Safiya Lux I. In truth, none of you can be called “pretty” or “cute” so its understandable when you roll your eyes. honey, your atheism is for good reason there is not a thing sweet about you. born silence and sighs, your heavy is a blackened pomegranate even you are scared to bite into. II. All this time, you been thinking the body is separate from the mind, and you’ve been trying to shrink. I thought you were wise. Wasting years contemplating ways to hide those fufu thighs. Shoulders hunched forward, unsure how to stand or how to polish that umber glow. You learned to draw attention away from the invitation of those mango breasts, the promise of molasses at your center. It’s wonder you can fool anyone, the scent of your ripeness follows you down crowded streets. III. Born ancient being big and bold, makes you alienating, young lady, you scream Africa, even when you are dreaming. your type of beauty is forestry and even with all that ugly, there are always men curious if they can discover, tame, save,
and own You. When they learn they can’t, under the gaze of those wide doe-panther sloe eyes, they will itch to cut you down. Find the one that lays himself, his heart, his sharpened teeth at the altar of your feet let him be the one to kiss them when you cannot. Still, learn to be flexible. Try. IV. Look down, those feet the little ones you were born with growed into canoes, gnarled and worn like grandma’s hands. i wonder where they’ve been what kind of land they’ve tasted what kind of shoes they’ve been forced into you have taken the form of a continent as virgin and dark and wile as the one that coats your skin and bunches your hair. this is why i always tell your fertile and soft, to be warrior too. you should know not to let anyone take your innocence or your sustenance away from you. V. Hayati, in this world, you are a reminder. in the sun, you are as mythic as the Amazons. Don’t you dare stumble down the street, averting stares, burning inside because we see
something you can’t. Stop worshipping God, until you can thank Him for your skin. Be understanding, it is not every day natural disaster glides down the street in bright scarves. VI. Hush, habibti, when the world, a scale, cracks under your feet. know that it is opening to whisper, “Kali, you break all the rules of beauty by comparison and yet i still can’t stop gazing. Your fear is not reason enough to disappear.” 2000anhour.tumblr.com
MEDICAL HONEY Tina Stumpf Bloated with post-partum Uterus the size of ripe fresh oranges Brand New C- Section scar Pink meat means that it’s healing The color of the sunset last night Falling beautiful on my fire escape and bouncing into my eyes Left over belly vulnerable and free Montauk water crashing on hot feet Sixteen more pounds of baby fat left Same weight of Grandmas costume jewelry Still bright and shiny It wasn’t a mistake That the home care nurse told me that wounds heal From the inside out Medical honey applied to kill bacteria Sprinkle over my state of mind Sunshine after a cool breeze passes Cause I’m doing healing here Berlin walls filled with graffiti Messages of love and peace The first thing I will think about every morning Father whispering into two minute old skin Our seed silent and listening A spirit so light to match a heart that will always forgive This is wound care
THE HAVE-NOTS Tina Stumpf WIC office Fordham Road in the Boogie Down, NY No zip code needed Cold air murals of small children and mothers breast feeding babies Glass windows that house robotic matching vests With half smiles calling next They hand me an oversized Disney princess card with a number on it Which brings me back to a question I’ve asked myself many times Why didn’t I go to college after high school? Uneducated that ain’t me Thinking of not belonging here I silently observe every mother, child, and baby Placing them in an inadequate bubble that somehow I was exempt from cause I mean I didn’t grow up limited Does this make me white trash? Number gets called Somewhere in between pitiful peanut butter and beggar beans I wish I had a desk job the one with benefits and a place to frame a picture of my husband and son Stamped checks Appointments times Wondering why women fuck so much without birth control if they can’t afford it God take the wheel cause I don’t belong here papersoul.wix.com/papersoul papersoul400@yahoo.com
A CELEBRATION Diana QuiĂąones She is fire. Her curly hair alive with the music and pulse of her ancestors.
Los Congos, Salve, Palos, Bomba y Plena Her eyes pools of sweet water Her skin amber with hints of burnt sienna Remnants of Africa and Spain. She is a dreamer of a new vision. She is a keeper of our African history. She holds our stories under her skirt. She shares our truth with our young.
She is a young scholar who adds a tambor to her university lectures, a pandiero to her research papers, and a barril to her seminar on the Legacy of Africa in Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. She opens maps and out spills the dances of our past, the wisdom of our elders, and the strength of our warriors. She is sassy and sexy. Her hips sway as she holds a machete in her hand and chops down racism, sexism, and fear. Her hips sway as she marches. Her hips sway as she defends her dissertation to disconnected professors. Her hips sway as she boils black coffee before the arrival early morning sun. A mother, she embraces and nurtures her young, like a Bao Bao tree digging its roots in the tierra of the new world. She is not alone. She is loved by her husband, her mate, her long time lover their souls are intertwined. A force. They honor and respect their commitment to each other in the face of unemployment, a check to small to pay the rent, and Madrina’s funeral. In this love she stands tall, watered by his rain. She continues to bloom.
A PRAISE POEM Diana Quiñones The sweet juice of strawberries lingers on my lips. I am love. A golden tree bathed in light It’s trunk solid Grounded in the earth. It’s leaves gigantic symmetric patterns hugging the sun with hints of red and brown on the edges. Waiting to fall to the ground The tree its roots live on It is eternal. A rebirth of leaves will begin next spring. I am the tree. I can and will begin anew. Shedding the old, watching my leaves fall Standing tall in the face of rain and snow. Arching my back towards the sun. The warmth of a green velvet blanket warms my skin as my hips sink into a welcoming couch. My eyes lingering on each word of The Red Tent. The loving soft brown eyes from the gentle face of a nine-year old who says, “I love you mommy,” every chance she gets. As she rubs her forehead to mine and giggles tickling my nose. Her hugs filled with pure love. She notices the moon filled sky. Look mommy. She gives me the gift of the present. A chance to reconnect and find my roots. I let go of time.
UNTITLED Nora Ritchie I. When the question was asked I answered a defiant ‘I just don’t want to be doing that’ the pot was hissing shaking furiously on the oven top spitting out specks of scolding, hot water I talked about it like my past life The part of me that I had to let go of to become an adult A dream set aside for more rational aims Inside I was uninhabited, extending for miles and miles over land I did not know cacti poking, pointing and pricking the truth gunning in my gut clues, signposts, a record on the radio ache, creative thirst pushing it all away looking it dead in the face and closing the door II. I grow buds in my heart sweet-smelling lilacs bursting from the seams of my skin ancient trees stretching from the bottoms of my feet I am rooted in all that I know and all that I do not know my leaves lean to the light and I give power to that which is still in the making believing that it will be and, inside, already is
CATCHING A GHOST Nora Ritchie I thought we had a love to last the ages He was my first First feelings of love, of “I love you”, of this is it, of ahh yes, this is love It has finally come for me the love that makes people write pop songs The love that makes you feel like you are flying while still on the sidewalk The love that feels like a familiar story from a familiar time, The love that makes you feel like anything is possible I suddenly felt so light, so free, so me He gave me his love generously Laying kisses on my belly Holding me close at night I shudder thinking of the safety I felt in the coziness of his black hoodie In the morning, lying in bed, looking at his sketches mythological figures, fairies and warriors, always set on a far-away land, unlike anything we knew in this world During his quiet moments, he had a gentleness about him that I still seek from the men I date His softness felt vast and safe, I could stay there forever At parties, he either planted himself in the corner and quietly observed, or hit on every woman he encountered He had devastatingly good looks and a charm I felt insecure with him, thinking he might dash off with some beautiful, artsy girl he met walking through town I remembered how quickly he fell for me, and I kept thinking he would do that with others One morning at his place, a mix cd made by his ex lay in the view of my half-awake eyes Her name was written in her handwriting in sharpie pen A big, squiggly heart above her name It felt planted for my reaction Why would my sweet pea do something like that? I brushed it off, rolled over, and snuggled myself within his arms, and for the first time, questioned the security I felt I remember looking at his eyelids flutter while he lay there sleeping Suddenly, a morning mood that I couldn’t decipher Harsh words of criticism seemingly plucked from the sky A dark, strange cave of secrets and loneliness unraveling His father never knew him and left before he was born When he was 20, he discovered his father’s number in his mother’s papers He called the number A woman answered the phone, the new wife of his father, and he asked for his father by full name His father came to the phone, he could hear children in the background
The man had a whole other famil out in the Midwest He said, “Dad, this is your son.” Immediately, he heard the click of the phone. His father had hung up on him. His mother had MS I never met her, but he told me how controlling she was, how “mad” she was And I wondered how all of this affected him Even though, deep down I knew Sexually, it was strange, very strange All of a sudden, he didn’t want me kissing him, but he wanted me in his bed Late at night he came over and drunkenly said he wanted to lick me, but only if I took a razor to my hair One night he said he had never felt so close to anyone in the whole world, but then I didn’t hear from him for days. I felt consumed by him and uncomfortably in love with him. He drove me to the edges of my rationality. All the molecules in my body felt sick. Through it all, I believed deeply, with my whole being, that I could save him, that I would show him that people that love each other stick around, that people who love each other are there for each other, that people that love each other stay for each other. I think I am still annoyed at myself for wanting to show him that, when some other part of me, feels that he doesn’t deserve that kind of love. It gets heavy and twisted…and I never know how to frame him in my memories. Before I could save him, he left. One day, he up and disappeared. Like a bony bare ghost that catches you staring at him, he up and evaporated. Out of his deep-seeded fear of abandonment, he left me before I could ever leave him. I moved to New York and thought of him feverishly for months. That fall, I played Bon Iver on repeat and hugged myself under the falling leaves of my favorite tree in Prospect Park. Waiting for the subway, I broke out my sketch book and wrote poems and stories about the anger I felt. How can I love someone that hurt me so much? I couldn’t wrap my head around that question and it troubled me that I still felt that love. I filled pages and pages of my journals with my dreams and thoughts. I loved the city and hated it. I was surrounded by people and felt utterly alone. Recently, 5 years since I last heard from him, I got a message from him on Facebook It was a simple note asking how I was I had this sick feeling of having the ‘last laugh’ and getting a nasty satisfaction that he had written me after so much time passing But then I realized, I still think of him, despite his madness and all that we went through, I actually still wonder how HE is Doing, Too. Sometimes, I think I see someone who looks like him My breathe stops and I gasp It’s like catching a ghost