Napowrimo Day 30

Well folks. This is the end. It's been good! I'll probably see you in April.

They say pride was the first sin. The first and
The deadliest. Not that I would know much
About that. Being a Jew and all. Still
It is a lesson that anyone born
Woman learns: You are but dust and ashes;
Don't go getting any big ideas now.
Look around you at the tragedy that
The rise of man has become. Why would you
Presume to do any better? How would
You stretch your small hands wide enough to catch
The world? How vain to assume you can save
Anyone else. How vain to assume you
Could save yourself. How vain to assume you
Could create, could build, could destroy, could love.
Alive was a word too big to carry
On your fragile wings. So instead you fell.
It started because an angel had the
Audacity to believe in herself.

Napowrimo day 29

Still Life with Frying Pan

Thick strong wall that crumbles
In an instant.
Clear liquid joyfully escapes
Running together
Runs into warmth and
Sizzles
Crackling and snapping at the sudden welcome heat
Color changes into
Bright white and dafodil yellow
A private landscape with its own sunshine.

"I mean everybody likes eggs but I like like eggs."--Simon

Napowrimo day 28

A little kindness

The sweetest noise a soul could make
Sounds like piano, or sweet strings
Of violin but in these woods are
Chirping crickets, frogs that sing.

The sweetest thing a soul could do
Is lay down here and rest her head
In this green forest, listen for
The echoes of my words unsaid

The kindest thing a soul could leave
On my green bed of earth and grass
Are flowers: red and pink and blue
To mark my sleep as seasons pass.

Napowrimo day 27

Just the slut poem, again

There are so many people coming and going from me that I could make a subway car jealous.
But did you know I teach environmental education?
I've had more fingers inside me than a communal glove at a baseball field.
I also have a close relationship to my parents.
More people ride me on the daily than a zip bike.
In eight grade I taught myself to read palms, even though I dont believe in god.
I was once a never have I ever question "never have I ever fucked Monya". More than half of the room had to drink.
I love reading science fiction and fantasy ya books.
A friend once called me "the bisexual steryotype"
I can identify almost every street tree in New York City.
Another friend told me that "you can't be shut shamed if you don't have any shame."
I go for runs almost every morning.

I like sex like the ocean is a little damp.
But one of my lovers, giving me a massage, once commented on how little surface area my vagina takes up on my body.
I love to celebrate sex with my friends and lovers and sometimes strangers.
I'm rarely shamed for it.
More often I'm "slut resduced"
Like if you put the essence of Monya in a big sauce pan and just simmered it
Until the writer evaporated off, until the horse lover evaporated off, until the outdoorswoman evaporated off.
Until all that was left was joyful lust.

The problem with being slut reduced
Is sometimes when I look in the mirror, tinted by society's constant agenda
To reduce women to their values as related to men
I see my own slur reduced self.
I see my ribs and my breasts and my back where it meets my ass
And not my feet
Or hands.
Or the point of my nose.
Other people's compliments start to feel hallow.
Sure,  I'm confident and good at sex.
What about my qualities as an educator?
A sister?
An activist?
A friend?

So yes, the subway is jealous of how many people have a fabulous time inside me.
But I want to make a 3d printer jealous of my dimensions.
I want to make the visible light spectrum jealous of all of my colors.
And I want narcissus to be jealous of how much I love myself.

Napowrimo day 26

This is my slut shaming poem:

There are so many people coming and going from me that I could make a subway car jealous.
I've had more fingers inside me than a communal glove at a baseball field.
More people ride me on the daily than a zip bike.

To say that I like sex would be like calling the ocean “a little damp”:

A technical truth but certainly not a dimensional one.

It’s more like I think sex is

Two magnets pulling towards each other

Or wire connecting an electrical circuit

The moment when you bring a flame underneath newspaper and the flame is so bright and alive and you can’t look away.

To me sex is baking. You bring a few simple things together and create something fucking delicious.

It’s more like I think sex is

Fireworks, and parades and the best chocolate you’ve ever tasted in your life.

So fun it should probably be illegal.

So fun that every time I have it I ask myself why would I ever do anything that isn’t this ever again.

I know life as a subway car couldn’t come close to this.

Napowrimo day 25

Borrowed words

One of the longest words in the dictionary means "the action or habit of estimating as worthless"

Did you know the Mayans invented the concept of zero?
Jews have no concept of heaven and hell.
If I died on the street in Brooklyn how long would it take for someone to find me?

How long would it take if I died on the Taconic? On the trans Canadian highway?

What would happen after that?

Where's the darkest place you've ever been?
Have you ever been anywhere that your eyes couldn't find a light?

What did you see when there was nothing to see?

What happens after?

Napowrimo day 24

Why I hate Harry Potter

I'm so tired of men being rewarded for their mediocrity.
Maybe Mcgonagall should have been headmistress.
And I bet Ron gets promoted at his job before Luna.
And what exactly did Harry do to not be the chosen one again?
Oh. That's right:
Not die

The problem with fantasy
With the richest, most elaborate worlds
Is that it's still only the fantasy of the oppressive society it stems from.
Where are the black people at hogwarts?
The disabled folks? The Jews?

But mostly Ginny and Hermione should have ended up together and in love.

Napowrimo day 23

An evening's dalliance

He smirks like he knows exactly what I'd like to do to him tonight.
My hips are a cocked and loaded gun and his hands are the trigger.
He pretends his beer is my lips and pulls
It all down his throat as quickly as he can.
I tease the rim of my cocktail glass and
God. The eye contact.

I swear his brown eyes are seeing into the depths of my soul and for just a minute I consider following him into hell.
He tells me people are a game to him and I think about his clever magician hands and how it would feel for him to dismantle me.
I hope he will take me apart.
There is no chance I will let him.

Everyone in the club wants us both and we lap up the adoration like dessert
But we gyrate back to each other once and then a dozen times.
We are magnets without a sense of public decency.
This particular brand of intoxication is better than drinking has ever been and twice as deadly.
And then somehow my hand is pulling on the chain he wears around his neck and
His lips are on mine and its everything
I've been wanting all night.

The brick of the graffitied alleyway presses smudges of spray paint passion across my back.
Solid, unyielding, I press back.
I claw my approval across his back in an act of vengeance.

By the end of the night I am left lying dressed in nothing but my emotional armour
And my knee socks.
I am on my back and pulsing and moaning around his fingers.
This act is an act of taking.
I reclaim ecstacy in the shape of his name.

Napowrimo day 22

Apoligies

“I'm sorry. I have to work late again”
“I'm sorry I just can't do this anymore”
“I’m sorry I want to provide for us”
“I'm sorry I could never find the words to make into poetry for you”
“I'm sorry I forgot our anniversary.”
“I’m sorry you put money over this family”
“I’m sorry we can’t eat love”
“Me too”
“I'm sorry I forgot how to taste the chocolate you bought me with the last of your paycheck. That I ate without considering the luxury”
“I'm sorry I forgot how to run my fingers through your hair in the way that you like. That they always got tangled.”
“I’m sorry I forgot the miracle of the way you move around the kitchen on Sunday mornings. That I slept in.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay in bed with you.”
“I'm sorry I couldn't melt all my hurt into a mug so that you might hold the warmth of me in your hands.”
“I'm sorry I was always so cold.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t read the love in the way you touched me”
“I’m sorry I only texted in single syllables”
“I'm sorry it ends like this”
“I'm sorry it lasted so long.”

Napowrimo day 21

**I do not own the song ophelia. The lumaneers do.**

Ava

"Oh, oh, when I was younger, oh, oh, should have known better"
But don't you remember how intoxicating your breath was?
"And I can't feel no remorse"
You were the best dancer in the hall
"And I don't feel no remorse, and you can't see past my blinders"
Every star in the sky shone for you and the streetlights masqueraded as stars too,
Hoping you might notice them.

"And I don't feel nothing at all"
The break-up didn't really take for a few weeks.
"And you can't feel nothing small"
The sadness seeped into me like dry rot.
I missed you in ways I didn't expect.
"Honey I love you, that's all she wrote"
I wish you didn't hurt like this.
I wish I could stop you hurt.
"Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love"

Napowrimo day 20

Eat, Pray, Love

I am the patron saint of wanting.
Of that feeling as I lean in to kiss someone I've had a crush on for two years.
The feeling like coals smouldering in the pit of my stomach, just waiting to ignite.

I am the patron saint of desire
Of walking down the subway stairs and feeling every single eye on me.
Of skirts just a little too short.
Of biting my lip because I'd rather bite your neck but I shouldn't.

I am the patron saint of leaving fake flowers under bridges in the hope that a stranger will find them and smile.
Writing love poetry to my best friend and
Buying my roommate chocolate with the last dollar left in my paycheck this week.

If you want to gain my favor,
I can be invoked with a kiss, or
An oil pastel drawing you made when you were high
My altars are trees growing off cliff faces or out of cracks in the sidewalk.
My altars are empty crab shells by the ocean or roofs or parking garages.
Worship me under open blue sky or in the basement of your favorite coffee shop.
Leve at my altar a poem you cried on
Or a white dress you spilled pasta sauce all over
Your favorite lacy underwear you wore when you forgot it was your period and then bled all over.

In return I will whisper to the wind about the way your eyes catch the sunlight
I'll leave notes under your pillow telling you that I find your inner strength inspiring
I'll arrange the magnets on your fridge in rhyming couplets about the way you smile.

In return I will remind you how many wonderful people want to kiss you.
I will send you a friend with strong, warm hands for a shoulder massage.
In return I will show you how much the world wants you back.

Napowrimo day 19

This is not a love poem

Home is
The feeling of sinking into the softest couch after standing for countless hours.
The cushions give under your weight,
Yielding to gravity, letting you sink towards the earth.

Home is
The smell of peppermint tea
And the feeling of warm pottery in your cool, dry hands.
And the way it feels to breathe in the gentle steam.

Home is
Driving in your car with the windows rolled down and the music turned up
The sun on your back and the wind in your hair
And the love of your life in the passenger seat.

Home is
Taking off your backpack after a long hike
A shoulder massage from your dearest friend
Being eaten out until your calves cramp with pleasure
Fresh baked challah bread from your grandma's recipie
The exact number of steps across your childhood bedroom
A song where you know every word by heart
Seeing your joy reflected in your best friend's smile
The smell of autumn
The taste of sugar on your tongue.

Home is
A pair of boots that fit your feet perfectly.
No matter where you take them.

Napowrimo day 17

Do you believe in love?
I remember when I didn't.
Because I knew I'd never seen love
I knew I'd know it when saw it.

It wasn't love at first sight, certainly.
It was not an ephiphany.
I didn't go over a waterfall and end up on the other side of love.

It was more like floating down a river.
You start at the headwaters so thin that you can stand one foot on either side.
And the stream grows so slowly you dont notice it
And then one day you look up at the roaring headwaters and think
"Ah love. This is such a simple place I have been for so long"

Napowrimo day 16

The thing I learned from the TV is that I can be gay or three dimensional but not both.
That homosexuality is a death sentance.
That to be gay and happy is to be sacrificed as a heterosexual platitude within the next 60 minute episode.
That Hermione will never end up with Ginny and Dumbledore is dead anyway.
That I can watch (and mastrubate to) brokeback mountain as many times as I want and it will never have a happy ending.
That blue is only the warmest color if heterosexuality is hot.

I learned to love in broken metaphors and unfinished sentences
I learned my own sexuality in rejections and convienient diversity brownie points.
They say homosexuality is ruining traditional marriage and I would be proud to slay marriage and stand panting over its bleeding carcass.
I would be happy to fall in love but I would never be as presumptuous as to fall in love to be happy.

Napowrimo day 18

Self portrait as the box of junk on top of my dresser

Look at me and the first thing you'll probably see is the glitter
Sparkling throughout the box
Mixed in along side the hairbands and chapstick
Catching the light and cheerfully reflecting back at you.

There are five colors of lipstick vibrantly shining out of my box
And seven chapsticks, waiting patiently to be practical
Which they often are.
They come and go with gratitude and love,
Glad to be of use to friends and strangers.
Glad to be returned to their home after long journeys in pocket books and handbags.

There are sharp things in my box of junk too.
Nail clippers
And bobby pins with their tips broken into points.
I have learned the new hard way to always look when I stick my hand in my box.

It's not a deep box or a large box
But it always has just one more band aid
Or cough drop or a comb I thought I lost a week ago.
Whatever I need, if I dig patiently and gently,
I can usually find it within my box.

Napowrimo day 15

A juxtapo-pigeon

Pidgeons and doves are likely the most common family of bird in the world and are distributed everywhere on Earth, except for the driest areas of the Sahara Desert, Antarctica and its surrounding islands, and the high Arctic."
And mostly, they eat our trash.
They eat grasses, and grains, and nuts, and berries when they can find them.
But in new York city there's a lot more trash than grasses, grains, nuts or seeds.
So they eat what they can find on the sidewalk
Do they know how many there are? Do they know how resillient?

Pidgeons were used as messengers in both world wars and 32 pidgeons have recieved wartime metals of honor.
The other day I heard someone call pidgeons "flying rats"

Doves have been worshiped as devine since ancient Mesopotamia
Ever since the first agricultural civilization
Pigeons have been gods.
And they live in the street
And the peck through the grit on the sidewalk for food.
What is the dirt to a god?

Napowrimo day 14

An ode to the way I SHOUT

This is an ode to the way that I SHOUT
The way my voice reaches across a room
Or subway or hallway with a BOOM
This is an ode to the way I am heard
I am loud, I am proud,
I cannot be deterred

This is an ode to the way I can fill
Up a room with a sprawl,
With a SHOUT, with call
This is an ode to the way I demand
To be heard, to be seen
To have you understand

I wish you could hear that the way that I SHOUT
Has to do with my mother
And her mother too
And the way I am woman and queer and a Jew

And sometimes I SHOUT just to prove that I can
And to hear the echoes
and know someone agrees
And hear my own voice from the sky and the trees

And sometimes I SHOUT so loud that I scare
Birds out of nests
Still hardly dressed
They wave their wings, scream, and they take to the air.

Men can be startled like birds to the air
Fragile, perched on their biases
They argue with words that attack and tear
Scared by my SHOUT, so they rip me apart
But my shout remains true
Along with my heart

This is an ode to the way that I SHOUT
In my shout I pray,
Laugh, beg, and say
That I will not be silenced, I will not stop SHOUTING
Until the world hears me
Until I'm done fighting.

Napowrimo day 13

Happy unlucky 13. I'm impressed with me. Are you impressed with me?

Never have I ever

Hold up your fingers
Five in a row
One for each sin
That no one should know

Hold up your fingers
Ten in a line
Put them down slowly
Stalling for time

Put down your fingers
Without any pride
Without any fingers
Theres no where to hide.

Put down your fingers
Beg to repent
But without your fingers
You'll make no amends

Napowrimo day 12

How to fall in love

Notice how green the grass is
How blue the sky is
How orange the autumn leaves are.

Treat the ground as if it is carpet laid gently on the ground
Walk as if every step is a dance to music only you can hear.
Turn up every song on the radio and sing along as though they were all written for you.

Paint your nails flamingo pink and paint your lips war paint red and
Wear your nicest underwear on a weeknight just because you like how the lace looks
Splayed out across your skin.

Decide you're going to learn to play gitaur
Decide you're going to learn to paint water colors
Decide you're going to learn to speak french
Look up a youtube for one, and fall asleep watching it and eating chocolate.
You will never learn, but each time you imagine you might.

Napowrimo day 11

The lament of the manic pixie dream girl

When I play with my hair I am cross
Or sometimes simply at a loss
For words or maybe joyful too
I do play with when I'm blue.

Don't do my the violence of trying
To read me like all of my signing
Is easy or simple
Or one dimensional.

I am an enigma, a strange
And irrational range
Of emotional expression
And to read me would be oppression,

Or at least oversimplification
And don't assume I need validation.
You accept me for me
And all my idiosyncrasies.

It may seem like a lot
But for a man, it would not.
I just don't want to be read
Like a book, but like a person instead.

Napowrimo day 10

Forgiveness tastes like sweet corn

And the worst part was, when the crowd came with
Pitchforks in hand and they did not know her name.
They bound her, led her to the wooden pyre
No humanity in their eyes, just fire.

All that was left on that barren field was
A smudge of blackened ash and then nothing
But rich earth where squash, beans and corn stalks grew
Up tall under a sky of heartbreak blue.

So it was in this was the witch was mourned.
By living fields that never knew her name
But breathed in the air and breathed out the sky
The summer winds waved through the corns "goodbye".

Napowrimo day 8

"Sometimes I wake up and think that the world has ended."
And instead of grief there is only silence
I float in a void
Weightless, soundless, sightless.
And I think about how nice it is that I don't have to go to work now that the world has ended.
And maybe today I will finally get around to cleaning the fridge.

Until a car honks on fourth Avenue or
Someone shouts in the hallway of my apartment building
Or my roommate bangs some dishes in the kitchen
And the illusion is shatters
And I am dragged back into the mundanity of existance.

Napowrimo day 9

This is my protest poem.
This is swarm the street like ants poem.
This is my small-but-mighty
If we all link arms they can't arrest us all poem.

This is my a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step poem.
This is my I probably won't be arrested because I'm white poem.
This is my I can't read the news anymore because of the pit of despair in my stomach growing a despair tree poem.

This is my mourning poem.
This is my grief feels like a glass breaking on the floor poem.
This is my numbness to tragedy because it's the only way I can get up in the morning and that's the greatest tragedy of all poem.

This is my rage poem
This is my stand up for injustice because that's what I would want someone to do for me poem
This is my "stand up, fight back" poem
This is my stand up and fight because if I don't fight now, there will be no one left.

This is my protest poem
This is my singing in the street until my voice gives out poem
This is my march and vote and burn it all to the fucking ground poem
This is my "this is what democracy looks like" poem

Napowrimo day 7

The Ferryman

Let me help you cross this river.
I know that the water feels cold
But it will not get in your tall rubber waders.
Unless you fall.

You will feel cold
And the water will press into you
And the deeper you go the stronger it will press
But trust the waders.
They almost never leak
And worrying now will do you no good.

The trick with wading is to be sure of each step
Pick up your foot but do not push your weight onto it until
You are absolutely sure your next step has steady footing
Do not think about the step after
Just where your foot is going now.
Do not fall
Or the cold water will rush in.

You must have a steadiness about your every step.
Do not make any sudden movements
If you rush your steps, you will lose your precision
And almost surely slip and fall on the slick rocks.

You may feel things bump against your legs
They may be sticks
Or rocks.
They may be fish or snakes.
The things that lurk about your legs most probably cannot get through your rubber waders.
Remember to be slow and precise when you move.

Can you see the other bank?
Remember that you are trying to get to the other bank.
You cannot stand in this river forever.
You must be going the right way because the river keeps getting deeper.
Probably it will not get deeper than your waders.
Probably the current won't sweep you away.
Probably you will make it to the other side.

Are you still paying attention to just the next step?
Where will you place your foot next?
Are you sure?

Napowrimo day 6

REMINDER TO VOTE TODAY

An apology to the child I will never have:

This is not a happy poem.

My neverborn child.
I am so sorry.
I cannot fathom bringing life into this world.
To labor for nine months
To divert my very heart's blood
To this other thing I put before my own life
And for what?

So that your first breath of air will be the stale and processed texture of a hospital room
And that your second may be the exhaust from the billions of cars across the hot and dry asphalt highway that the earth has become.

So that you will feel the blistering heat of California's wildfires on their tender and new skin
Be torn at by the winds of hurricanes that level islands.
So that your lips and tongue will dry and crack in the dessert land that India has become.

I cannot imagine bringing you into this world where the first thing you hear is
A sex that will haunt you for the rest of your life
Whether or not you try to leave it behind
A sex that demands you to be murderer or murdered
Hysterical or emotionless.
A world where a proclamation of joy is damning, so what what must a proclamation of damnation sound like?

A world where you would see the faces of white men in power
And all the hate they hold in their eyes
Hundreds of sick and homeless and starving on the walk from the hospital to the car
You would see disaster
Tragedy, devastation, every time they turned on the news
A new cause to devote time and money to
A new hill to die on

How could I have you in a world where you won't have enough to eat?
In a world where you won't have a roof to sleep under?
There will be no money to pay your medical bills, to send you to college.
How could I birth you into a world where I could never give you what you deserve?
How could I create another soul's suffering and pain on top of a world of suffering and pain?
Another drop in a bucket of misery
Another straw on the dying camels back?

I said this was not be a happy poem.

Napowrimo day 5

Vulnerable

Today one of my black students said to me "nobody has any power."
"Except god" Another added.

Her name is Eternity. Or Essence. Or Nicelle. Or Ithiliua.
And every time I stumble on it I feel the echo of all the other well meaning white women who has stumbled on her name today.
I once saw Essence and a woman who looked too young to be her mother walking down the street.
Her too-young-to-be-her-mother was on the phone while Essence danced about her, pulling on her sleeve for attention.
Her too-young-to-be-her-mother ignored her for a few minutes before putting her hand over the receiver and shouting
"Shut up! Can't you see I'm on the phone?!"

I my class Essence smiles hugely every time she raises her hand to answer a question.
We did a unit on camoflauge and Essence was so excited to explain how zebras blend into the grass around them.

What would I tell her mother?
What could I tell her that would help?
What right to I have to imagine I could help?
Help her. Help Essence.
"Nobody has any power."
"Except god."

Napowrimo day 4

For extra credit, kiss someone when you're done reading this poem

Tonight I want to kiss someone
Doesn't matter who
I'd like to hold someone's face in my hands
And make a sacrifice of my lips.

I'd like to bare my neck
To the sharpened white teeth of another.
The vulnerability of naked flesh
The intimacy of a tongue swirling on skin

Tonight I want to kiss someone
Doesn't matter who
I'd like to fall into their eyes and drown.
With no hope of recovery.

I'd like to press my lips to theirs until I'm breathless
Until I've memorized every crease of their lips.
Every swell and dip of their cheeks and eyes.
The oscillation of their body against mine.

Tonight I want to kiss someone
Doesn't matter who
Just matters that they're standing in front of me
That their body is solid and unrelenting
That their hands are firm and unyielding
That they stand there. And that they want to kiss me.

Napowrimo day 3

A love poem in A minor

Would you help me take off this pack?
I know that the weight is so great that the backpack is pulling apart at the seams 
But perhaps with the two of us it will move easier off my back.

Would you set it gently upon the mossy earth and sit beside me for a while in this forest?
And watch with me for the sunrise?

And when the sun crests the horizon, peeking golden between the trees
Will you help me lift it
And set it again upon my shoulders?

Napowrimo day 2

A memoir for the me who didn't love herself.

Some day you will look at yourself in the mirror
And you won't pinch your cheakbones
Or your belly
Or pull on your eyelids.

You know, even now, how smart you are
But you can't quite grasp why that's not important
Like a smell you remember in quality but not in source.

You don't have any idea how how charismatic you will be
Or how you will find joy in dancing
Or how you will find joy in other people.
You haven't yet seen the sunrise.

But you have your own sunsets of joy
I forget the worlds you discover in fantasy books
The worlds you find in the woods
The worlds you find in a well written essay.

Someday you'll have a whole day of joy.
These moments in the mirror are just that
Just a moment. Let it pass and the sun will se again.
The sun will rise again.

Napowrimo day 1

Hello my loves! It's that time of year again. So buckle your seat belts and put on your flying goggles because we're heading into this month's nano at full speed and without air bags. That's right, a poem a day for the entire month. So without further ado, day one's poem:

Antithesis:

Martin Luther,
When you posted your theses to the great church door, did your hands shake?
These words you had written painstakingly, letter by letter
Did they tremble with the enormity of what they were about to do?
What do you do when all you have is a small flame of conviction burning in your heart and the entire world is a thunderstorm of dissagreement?

Martin Luther,
When you were on the stand,
A jury of your equals telling you that everything you had written was
Wrong. Misguided. Treasonous.
Did your faith waver?
Did you imagine that maybe these bishops and deacons,
Knew more, knew better
Than you?
Did you ever think how easy it would be to just admit they were right,
This whole thing had been a great mistake,
How warm and safe it would be to return unto them?

Martin Luther,
When the Pope excommunicated you
When the emperor banished you
When you left Rome with a bible in one hand and what was left of your life packed in a neat roll on your shoulders
Did you ever look back?