"The Diagnosis"

 

11/2/2020

 Wish I could hammock near you right now. 

Take a vacation like in a dream and be warm on a beach. 

Not care about incessant hammering, sanding and grating rattling coming from the painters next door. Or inside my veins. Can't tell which. Though I think it's the painter...

We could enjoy a frothy Colombian cocktail

Count parrots. 

We could exist on an island like heaven. 

Trace freckles on an arms that we'd say we remembered.  

St Patrick's brings up all my greenest heartsongs.

Of when I was a simple blade of grass 

Growing across the world

Wide and all at once.

Of when I drank Guinness 

In my grandmother's sweater. 

When laughter was a language I spoke fluently

With you.

🍀

What my mom said

You were born into the arms of wonder

of wonder who i am without all these children

or wonder what i could have been without all this marriage

or wonder will i ever know myself 

will i ever be free from the pain of molestation

of pain i didn’t ask for but felt was my fault because i stayed still

because i stayed quiet 

because i stayed breathing in time

with a clock

at the edge of the table

at the edge of the bed

of the bed of my father’s father

pain.

pain.

pain was born inside my body before i knew how to spell it.

pain was scathed from one unhappy hand to another before i knew how to break it

pain moved from his hand to my chest and i felt it

forever

burning inside my blood 

carried inside my breasts

inside the milk

that spilled when my child needed her drink. 

i held her and promised that nothing bad—to her— would happen 

like it happened 

like it happened

like it happened to me. 

All of my life, I’ve been after the fact 

protecting the knot from exposing my darkness

from exposing the rot that i asked for, forgot

and the older i get, the older it is, and i can not grow from the place i was shot. 

I’m lower now into the grave

my father, at his age in a haze of confusion, 

i dare not release 

what i know he should have seen

but did not 

did not

did not

Now that my son has a daughter

I feel it beginning all over again

I want to reach out 
branch over state lines and shade her
from splintering crimes 
committed by lonely, broken men

I want to start over again. 
In her eyes I’m divine 

she doesn’t know

I’m broken somehow
deeper than i know how to go

deeper than i’ll ever show

i want to be a sheltering tree 
for the daughters that come

for the daughters that come

after me. 

take me home to grace 

take me!
save me a space

i fill all my pockets with sage

i found a god, call him Father

call him better, call him judgment day

call him saving place, call him heaven

call it no place for people like you—like him—

See the scars on my heart make it hard to distinguish you from him

i’m never sure
never sure
never sure 

even my own husband can only touch me sweetly some of the time

mostly it’s tin foil in tin fingers down the lining of my tummy 

but as his wife, i befriend it

the shadow of abuse

the darkening the sky

builds, sprouting seeds in the throat

a volatility, a rage, a parade of malpractice

of dark

of heavy 

of clouds that wrap around and around

they never believed us, until now

until now

until now 

In the rain, i hold my granddaughter, rocking

In the spring, we will kill what winter did not  

K Jackson

I'm still uncovering
Pieces of you
In this place we lived
Together.

The label maker
When turned on
Said your name
Gravity landed hard on my thumb as I hit the backspace.

Eight times in a row.

Erasing my need
To place you.

in:sent

Joanna here.  

Sending you the warm of something that feels like vanilla. 

Wanted to let you know

I'm not crafting sewers anymore. 

heaps of trash 

with wailing arms. 

I've given that all up.

I want you to know
I don't hold your name hostage. 

I acknowledge the grey area. In all things.
Everything is a grey area, until it's not. 

A gnarled tree, rotting, nearly falling over, crawling with bugs

still sighs a kind of refuge. 

I just wasn't ready to jump into lover-hood.
It took me by surprise. Such a proposition.
And you must have known, I didn't come to you for that.
Immediately, I felt boxed in.
A feeling of trap grew around me
Blazed 'warning' in my mind.
It was innocent, enough... consensual on paper.
Still, my eyes blinked in smoke.

A man in power, reaching down to me.  

For sex.
While I was reaching up to him
to be taken seriously.

So, yeah, lately, I have been thinking of you.
What happened with us.
My path, crossed with yours.   

I'm writing, currently. 

Evolving.

Going in circles that move.

THOT

For you not in the know

THOT 

Translates to

That hoe over there

Now that you know,
Click it.