copy what

trauma, especially the kind that gets passed down

is like being a member of a club you think is exclusive

but may more actually be universal

speaking of it may get you excommunicated

from all your social groups

much more admirable to soldier on silently

like every generation before

trauma alters cells, they say

and we pass it on

whether we speak of it or not

so speak, I say

call it out

clear its register from the body

and halt this chain of replication

Game

Born into a system of subjugation

Some of us became lethal players of the game

And they worshipped our untouchableness

With groans and more desire

Some of us opted out

Evolving and becoming something other

Something not on the menu, we hoped

Others of us went underground in our own minds

And we are barely even here, even when you are inside us

Our grandmothers terrified us with their traumas

Hoping that fear would keep us safe

They had accepted that this was how it was

Their minds fit for survival, not this revolution

But we are their daughters’ daughters

And we say it is time for a new game

This is one we will no longer play

Chamber

We were two grown girls in love

With swagger and sleights to share

We were both of us wrecked

Well on our way to ruin

One of us needed to be healed

The other needed

Never to admit to the wound

It tore us apart

But there is a chamber in my heart

That holds only your name

& my dream of us together

marrow

You’ve hit a new low

The one where you ask the underage kid for help with

Getting your fix because they have more access than you do

And you hate that your need to escape has brought you both here

But it’s not stopping you as you sit blearily with your morning after shame

Of crashing someone else’s stage at that bar you love

But will never have the guts to return to

After exposing your most private pain outrageously

As if it took all those witnesses with their eyes on you

For you to finally call it by its right name

To believe the story your body tells

Whispered up from the insides of your bones

The denial isn’t working and you can’t keep breaking down

You try not to think of all the time lost and all the things you’ve yet to be

You imagine yourself pristine still

Walking in some parallel space unmolested

And wonder if that girl would have had babies

Or had her life together by now

And just then the rush hits in its mercy and raises you to the ether

Where you look down to see your body standing

Over the corpse you’ve been carrying

So you name it to its rotten face and watch its teeth all fall out

Its power to hurt you lost with the lie you told to keep yourself sane

You will bury it properly this time just as soon as you get back