Holiday Furies

I will always
miss those long-ago years
when my gut was strong,
strong as my heart is wild. 

I will always
miss those long-ago years
when pain was an abstract,
not concrete in my bones. 

I will always
miss so many things, but 

I will never miss you,
hope eater. I will never
miss your bullying feasts-- 

my young fury and I
standing in our dark, hoping
for better years to come,
when you’d gorge yourself
on loneliness.

When I was very young--and not in charge of my life--I couldn’t refuse accompanying my parental unit to a “holiday celebration” at a relative’s house. The relative in question was a monster, who threw their wealth in the faces of those less fortunate. They were so subtle about it, that even a kid could see right through their bullshit. Year after year, that beast (passing for human) ruined people’s holidays. My poem was inspired by a memory: One of the younger cousins wouldn’t stop crying, after she realized that none of the gifts being opened belonged to her. Grinning, the hosting beast told the child that she was sure her mamá would have something for her at home. I saw the child’s mother’s eyes shine with unspilled shame. I glared at the beast, and thought: One day, no one will come to your shit parties. You’ll be all alone. And you’ll be sorry. Not very sweet, I suppose. But what can I say? I save my sweetness for people who don’t have a black hole where their humanity should be. 

Speaking of awesome people, I hope you have a Holiday Season full of all the good things your brain and heart have been hoping for, and a New Year that brings wonder and goodwill. Be happy. Be kind. Be loving (especially to yourself). Be hopeful.

Hope is much stronger than rage, too… such a powerful little word, hope.

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #157: Holiday Anxieties), where we are invited to write about holiday anxieties. I’ve never felt anxious about the winter holidays, so I wrote about the holiday rage my younger self simmered in for years… 

Food for Flesh and Soul

not-quite Journaling, 76 

The blossoming is done
for you, they told her...
spring is gone;
summer went cold;
autumn will fall
at winter’s feet. 

But she ignored them--
wild nature is always
too wild to quit blooming 

on anyone’s command.

 

10/20/2024: I think “a terrible beauty” should be added to the definition of Climate Change. I can’t believe how many things are still blooming this late in the season. According to the forecast, it’s supposed to be 80 °F in New York City on Halloween. Makes me want to cook my traditional All Hallows’ Eve pumpkin chili outside, on a fire pit… The thought of a big cauldron bubbling over flames and coals, woodsmoke and spices and storytelling scenting the air, takes me back to the best years of my childhood *happy sigh*. 

 

If life skins off de-
light, I shall wear
midnight as a suit. 

11/10/2024: This poem bit was my response, when asked to illustrate my feelings on the election results (and what said results might mean for a chronically ill, veteran, immigrant, woman of Afro-Caribbean descent). After reading the poem, someone said they “admired and envied [my] grace and lack of pain”. At first, I thought the person was being sarcastic. When I realized they were serious, my brain and I spent some long seconds stunned by the idea of anyone being so blind… Then, I proceeded to completely lose it—loudly, descriptively, and at length: 

I shouted something (probably slightly unintelligible) about metaphors. Then I Magaly-explained that being skinned alive would involve pain, that choosing to stand up when soles and knees and palms are raw from being flayed would be pure agony, that wearing anything on freshly exposed muscles and bones would be torture, that doing any of these things would require taking sadness, rage, disappointment, will, and the almost-corpse of hope… and reshaping all that terrible energy into armor to keep my heart (and other people’s skulls) from being crushed under my pain.  

I am angry. I am sad. I am in pain. And I am not feeling particularly graceful at the moment. But “this too shall pass”. 

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #152: Holding Your Breath)

Some Years “After the Almost-Apocalypse”

A breast
cancer scare hits hard
and fast--twisting, twisting,
twisting… the mind and gut
and leaving the heart feeling

drained, displaced, desolate. 

Those terrible days
(the ones that snail by
while your world is waiting,
waiting, waiting… to learn
if life is really rotting
inside the walls of your being)
those days are soul eaters.

But after
the almost-apocalypse is done,
when healers chant,
“You’re fine. You’re just fine”,
your world grows less bleak--
flesh and blood and bone exhale,
and the spirit blossoms

(differently) anew.

 

 

Daisy Sunshine by LoopyLady

- someone asked me, “Are you excited to get back to your normal life now that breast cancer is gone?” I told them that I wasn’t sure ‘getting back to normal’ was a realistic option for me. Later, after I had some time to think, I sent them a quote from Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, to explain that after breast cancer, ‘it’s like your life breaks into a million pieces and when you put them back together, they don’t quite fit exactly the same.” Surviving (and thriving after the Breast Cancer Monster), requires hope, determination, self-love… and enough creativity to craft ourselves a new normal.

- I wrote the first version of this poem years ago; time has changed bits of it (and me).

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #134: It’s a Dirty Job)