facebook says the boy who raped me has been my friend for 4 years
& facebook wants to celebrate that : & facebook wants to show me
the night of—
my bodycon & pink-lip & proof
that my mouth
wasn’t full
of fists / that my body
wasn’t gorged
by rough hands / that i turned
myself a colony,
a thing bound by water
& the morning after—
my top-knot & sweatshirt & toilet bowl
a little blood / a tiny ache / a small burn
at breakfast, photographed
him beside me, smiling –
“you’ve shared all of this together”
facebook says
& facebook wants to celebrate that : & facebook wants to show me
its collection of remembered things / horrors / a book of events where i threw up before attending them / horrors / how my teeth became rock salt / my bed a list of landmines / i don’t touch / comfortably / for four years / & four years / of horrors / of pretending / i could leave my bedroom / without burning / without smoking / weed / with my mouth / full of fists / my body gorged / my hands rough now / then / how they held things / horrors / that could break / too tightly / how they broke / the glass / how it shattered / came cannibal against itself / a little blood / a big room / & him / & horror / & me / & no / & no / at breakfast / beside me / & me / a colony / a thing / bound by water / & this
a list of events where you appear in ghost
my birth day
is a room
with your body
i am born
swoll
with rosehips
i am born
in the spring
in the room
with your body
the walls
are pale
the trim, azure
the women
have gold crowns
on their teeth
it is spring
in the face
i’ve got your mouth
and nothing
more
in the face
you are the fist
and the first
to apologize
on telling my mother, or the summer my body wasn’t a burning thing
i touched myself
so deeply, i think
the water that came
came as chamomile
fídju, you know how a violent love will eat
the room of a memory
as ripe or supple bruise;
the rotted skin of a mouth
as garden or planet
so i boiled lemon leaves
with rose petals, let
the room become full
of everything softening
fídju, you know how a violent love will turn
your chest a word that burns your throat
a thick of salt, a lard of vowel;
your tongue a sequined scab
a sheet of ash, a rind of poison
so i laid beside a girl
whose name, i think,
meant nothing
except tender song
fídju, you know how a violent love will make
your body incoherent machine
your body incoherent machine
your body incoherent machine
your body in coherent machine
so i prayed my body
a soft sanctuary, a
summer without fire,
a gentle birth
but oh, fídju, you know how a violent love will burn
yes, you know how violent a love will hunger
a letter to your mouth as a broken machine
that summer
i am waisted slim by cigarettes
steaming from my sugarplum mouth;
you are fist against flower garden,
all hungry and taking and taking;
i am a canary yellow sundress of a girl
i shred on my twenty-third birthday
when i am so alone and rough
that i might wring the water out of someone
i love because horoscope.
you are kinda fucked up
in that way, how you’re all plunder,
all thirsty and taking and taking;
i am kinda fucked up in that way,
how i promise there are no surprises:
i am coming how i come
with poem and apology and big breasts
with cocoa butter and eucalyptus tea,
with the same nervous question:
what if i don’t want to disappear?
what if i don’t want to disappear
into the summer without thunderstorm
or into the imaginary sound of it
raging in your backseat as a girl
funneling her lightning into you,
burning as we both become celestial
and sorry for only having our bodies
mick powell (she/her) is a queer black fat femme feminist survivor poet who likes revolutionary acts of resistance. She is currently an MFA in Poetry candidate at Southern Connecticut State University. Mick obtained a B.A. in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies from the University of Connecticut. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Feminist Wire, Black Girl Dangerous, the Long River Review, Winter Tangerine, and The Fem. She is one of the Associate Editors of the Emerging Feminisms section at The Feminist Wire. You can almost always find her in all-black, like Beret Girl from An Extremely Goofy Movie, who is her poetic aesthetic inspiration.
2 Comments