LOSS THROUGH A SECOND PERSON POINT OF VIEW
 

You prayed that the next room you entered would be safe,

said amen and shifted doors till there was a way for you. 

The moon was there to watch you abandon mobility. 

The rug would have told stories 

if you hadn't silenced it with your foot. 

You couldn't tell if the trickle 

was blood or water. You couldn't tell. 

 

The clock struck; a Bellatrix shoving her hand inside 

the space between worlds. 

The walls were listening again, turning every grunt into 

a desire for vengeance. 

Your face bore witness to why the world began in water. 

Your legs were ripped apart, vessels heading towards the tip of a cliff. 

There was a heady wonder in the air. 

 

You called it disbelief and it didn't matter

You called it foolishness but it still didn't matter. The clock chimed in . . .

 

?

 

Do you know, No is the most silent word?

When a scream is channelled through the chest, 

the body becomes a wasteland so silent

 you can hear the sand murmuring. 

 

Some things just break because the world has a taste 

for destruction. 

Imagine the thrill in seeing 

a thing once whole lie broken on the floor. 

 

 

Hush. The truth is: come evening, 

the water will trespass upon the sands 

and not all of us will be saved. 

 

 

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I KNOW THE COLOR OF MY PAIN 

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It is Thursday morning and we are fighting for all of us

Deborahs, Delilahs, cursed tempters of Adam.

We are crying the tears our parents wept into their dreams.

We are our parents' dreams.

I wear my mother's wishes like a sponge,

and all the rage passes through.

Everyone who has tried to knife me

has found me open and soft.

 

I wake up everyday to write my pain 

into a poem holier than 

the wandering hands of a priest.

I think of the seed sad at being taken away from the sower

& parables, all that wisdom of the world for nothing.

 

Everywhere, it hurts to be a woman 

For the planting season was over before we came

Now all we do is reap the harvest.

R-A-P-E as four silent letters in the mouth of a small girl

Is loudest in the grave.

 

& all these fields? They are burnt, charred and black

All the ripe fruits die screaming. 

To birth a daughter is to birth a lamb who waits for answers 

in front of closed doors

It is to hear the echo of our own small hand knocking, 

knocking.