Chapter Eight

safety, sinisterly sinuous, is it necessary to admit

you lost it? or never had it. or never knew how to name it

properly, please

teach your body using words, language, languorously ludic don’t

waste another day without saying it

trust me, trust me, you are safe

safe from betrayal, abandonment, wounds, pain, brutality, brave

you are, my heart

brave you always were, beyond boundaries and bruises stay

slow down, let me talk to you, body you were scared

scattered, unworthy of touch, touching the border of insanity,

insatiable

how could you know the mind is culpable of your lingering

aches?

and not only. others too:

there’s a tremor in the muscles that was given to you, heritage,

erroneously passed to you

your father doesn’t know where he got it

you know you got it from him, put it down now, press it to the

ground

give it back and fear not the grotesque consequences of you

walking

barefoot, free, unharmed; heart

hear me out, you will survive

here’s your new way of beating - trust, safety

hear me out, you will learn

here’s to all the good days to come - safety, trust

I want you to be fully, flamboyantly, fiercely beating bold and big

and brave

I’ll hold you while you become

I find it difficult to measure experiences in anything

but words so this 

is an obsession. 

a quest of the letters. a begging

palms shaped like hunger

hunger shaped like an oak’s tree branch

constantly bruised knees. a tank full of ecstasy 

I haven't found the key to allow its flooding. 

all concepts are ingredients

to be weighed

palms, knees, ribcage

but I forgot all the rules of mixing.

sounds too bright. pain 

too loud. an octopus-shaped confusion. I lost 

myself on this map.

change the quest. the rhythm. the purpose.

I learn how to glow underwater - 

an iridescent lullaby of questions and tenderly asphyxiating anxiety. 

tentacles - bright and soft 

thoughts - bright and soft

with language, I grow wings 

and tails and eyes at my armpits

hoping to see closely if my heart really beats for 

truth. 

stuck with a forever restless 

heart, I have to learn 

patience. silence. peace. 

I write so I can send ravens 

from my brain to my heart

it's ok to stop for a brief second when terrified 

I write so that the soil where they cut the tree from 

would start accepting the rain again

I write with conviction and doubt 

with the same pen

letting them entwine in confusion 

I bleed all over it

ruby-red confusion where 

another poem begins

ruby-red love where 

another poem ends.

I write so the ravens will come back up 

carrying reassurance like an oak tree’s branch

I learn patience. silence. peace

hoping that language can hold at a distance 

whatever it is on the other side. 

I allow the water to wash me

and drain away all that isn't mine

I let go of what I've inherited, what I've carried

what I took without asking if it made

sense or how heavy it would be.

I beg the water to cleanse me

to unload through my soles out of my body all

the anger fear anxiety longing hatred resentment malice

that aren't mine.

I thank my grandmother, I thank

my mother for giving me life and

a deep abyss to fill with love and words

and to heal it for them

and for all the women before them who

turned the other cheek

who slept on the floor thinking that was their place

who dreamed of running far away.

That's how I got here - far away,

being the one who breaks away from all that was

our inheritance and pyre and burden and treasure.

Women, I come from this land

from the marshy soil, from brick and metal

I come with drums, and I seek you to say that I can

I can hold everything

and I bear you no blame.

This was how it was meant to be for all

for all of us, without fully understanding.

I beg the water to cleanse me

flow now! like sand, like young earth

flow and wash me of all that isn't mine.

And I understand, at the same time, that in fact,

everything is:

mine, my people's, my women's, my blood's.

I honor this understanding

and let it flow.

Water, give me days to rejoice,

give me light to reach the corners that are difficult to bend

for there I will settle and

with patience, I will begin to fold them

until everything becomes a core,

Essence.