A Standing Ovation

The womyn like Jasmine Alexandria Barber, Fatimah Asghar, Zei Aden, Mary Scott-Boria, Farwa Batool Fiasco, Janet Garcia, Nina Li Coomes and many many others who have all been giving me and my poetry life for years have inspired me to finally challenge myself to write a poem every day of National Poetry Month.

Here is Day 1/Poem 1

when the man in my coffee shop
finally recognized me
he asked what was going on

and part of me says
that I have been considering
all the men in my life
who have disappointed me

I have been weighing all of my sexual relationships
on scales and the more I do that
the more my lungs are shriveling
and heaving
the more my legs tense
and sink

part of me shouts
do you know what rape looks like?
can you tell me a definition
that isn't whispered or snuck under rugs
or suffocated under sheets?

can you tell me what gender is?
can you tell me a definition
that isn't rolled out and neatly
printed on clothing tags?

part of me wants to say
I am considering myself
and how I have disappointed

part of me
bit my tongue
and the blood
of my body
reminded me
of my shame

and most of me comforted him with a laugh
and gave him what he wanted
I told him I had gone a bit crazy
I wanted to get it all off my head

I cut this off yesterday I hear myself saying
part of it was desperation
part of it was excitement

don't think it was about you
it wasn't even about me

it was about the womyn
who have tended to the little garden
on my head
for years

my mother
my Nana
my aunt
all my sisters
who whispered
in my ears
as the razor hugged my scalp

the scissors
sung a chorus of
chh, chhh, chhh
and i saw the regime fall
before my eyes

it was the brujas
I send secret love notes to
and the red knuckles
of the irish women i come from
it was the drag queens
and the female lovers
who caressed my spiky locks
as I fell asleep to the song
of the woman on the moon

when I arose
it was because of the sun:
a standing ovation