Stay With Me My Darkest Hour:

A Suite Of Poems By

Being a Woman

And preaching a faith that

Red lipstick, French tip cocks, Winnie blues. Being a woman Is the inability to be anything Other than just that. A woman. Passed through starved arms and held down by the will of God.

What do I want?

Being a woman, Is not knowing if you enjoy womanhood.

I will rip my womb in half just to create another life Like it’s all I’ve been programmed to do. What I have been created to do. Created for recreation

And the eyes of God are telling me I’m on the right track And I’m doing just fine Yet he still pins me here

MIA DAVIES

What do I want?

To be held by the arms of those around me in my darkest hour?

To perish by the will of God? The devil is in my ear. But you are in my lungs, Heaving every last breath of mine own.

I give. I give. I give.

The more you take the more I have to give. Bleeding out every last drop.

I breathe so you can run. I stand so you can fly. But what about me?

You take. You take. You take.

And the less I have to give, the more you are willing to take.

But who I am, If not a woman?

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY MORRISH

The Seasons

My rosy cheeks will fade As the snow melts, As the children grow.

The blue of my eyes will go, A lover who wakes up the next morning, Ready to go back to their normal life.

Until the next Friday night at No number of words Or amount of knowledge Will turn heads As I walk across the room.

February 14th

Its February 14th

And I can still taste you in my teeth. If I breathe heavy enough I start to seethe That night you showed up at my door

With nothing to show for

But a wilted rose.

I brought you mice because I thought that was what you liked, I didn’t realise They were alive

The horror on your face should have told me otherwise

But all I’ve known is hate

So, I mistook it for

Love,