by Aja Monet
he wrote his first suicide note,
folded it into your breath and prayed
you’d be the death of him.
you bring out the fear in me,
the fear of God’s eyelash.
you give this living
a life of loving left laying
on the lie of this world,
leaning.
thank you for being
so goddamned
inexplicable
for making me think about you
so hard.
i went to church today, and left
two pills of advil for god.
at the altar, i said a prayer for him,
that he will not turn to narcotics
or lonely nights of drinking wine
in his empty room, or that a song
won’t play on the radio
or in heaven and remind him
of when he was young
and it was okay
it was okay
to make
mistakes.
unhurt
hurt was here before we were
someone you love will eventually disappoint you
maybe even break your heart or hurt your feelings
this will happen
accept it
sometimes repeatedly
oftentimes
repeatedly
we will be hurt
it will feel lonesome and sickening
you will wonder
what has gone mad
in the world
you will question
everything
beginning with yourself
you may even wish you owned a rifle
a knife
a proper fist
the perfect word to scar an inside
but you will cry
someone will hurt you
today
tomorrow
the next day
three years from now
and you will
love them
one day
you will love
them
for it
this thing
some twisted appreciation
for the suffering.
you only know love
through the lens of neglect
joy through the lens of pain
it’s fascinating
actually
how we wound with our wounds
and call it humanity
the first time you hurt
someone you love
you will question
the last time
you tended an open wound
you will vow to never do it again
you may even pray
to some god
some yemaya
some universe
anyone listening for forgiveness.
or the greatest death
you will not care at all
be prepared
for a hurting is coming
it will come and it will take you
suddenly
maybe you will be dancing
or laughing
or remembering
maybe you won’t notice it at all
and you will hurt yourself
you will hurt yourself with all this
hurt thought and you will love
hurting
and you will love
no one really wants to hurt
you will say
no one really wants to hurt
it will turn from blame
to revelation.
i don’t really want to hurt.
and you will love
did you know that?
did you know you will love?
never mind
the who
never mind
the when
it’s of no importance
you will love and it will
unhurt us all
slow season in titusville
early this morning,
just after homemade coffee
you drove me to playalinda beach
with your right hand on my left knee
and the other limp-wristed on the steering
wheel, on our way from the bridge
between the highway and the hammock trail,
half of me soaring out the sunroof
with my arms spread wide, pelican-like,
open palms toward blue topaz,
squinting at a blazed sun
the wind against my breasts,
hissing across my shoulders
cheeks crumble into tugs and tears,
the road was endless for our tires
a rolled-out carpet of tar for our love
the night before was but a blur
you pulling your face away
to the edge of the bed
us bickering into each other
we played like an ol’ Josh White tune
coating mr. pirtle’s antique garage
warm
static
full of bass
like someone speaking
close to you
in a summertime pitch
of piedmont blues.
i say i love you
a life in boxes
rolls down the east coast
like a greyhound cup of dice
i bet on this
each time
you picked me up
one time
from the airport
with a whole chicken
seasoned in the trunk
blooming red flowers
in the cup holder
a bottle of malbec
at my feet
a wine glass
in the glove compartment
gifts gathered
as if i were some orisha crowning
you would not tell me where we were
going. i did not close my eyes often
we crossed over a body of water and you set
your grin on me like that, an open book
of hymnals. i felt it in my toes.
i was a symphony
summoned by
that much
that’s how much
a song i sing under my breath
a hand i hold
fearless and unspeakable
i would journey the ends
for this
blindfolded
cross my heart
selah
1.
we were inevitable and since then
inseparable. i fell for your eyes before
i knew what your mouth could do. we
wandered inside the looking, silence
dozed in a gaze that spans a lifetime,
a landscape of gazing. we reached
morning together. desire outlived
its moment and we touched a realm
without touch or time. a bead of your
sweat is, too, the dew that drips on
foggy glass. the van on the road,
i hurried to sit next to you. your
body is an earth and my body, too.
2.
if you love like that to know what
drives you mad, to reveal what in you
aches, how you live in the heart, never
mind judgment or what it tells. if you
love like that. to honor what abhors
us. to deserve beauty, we demand it,
seek it in all unseen places. alive in
what is unsaid. beauty is the absence
of distraction or insecurity or judgment.
beauty is resistance and love
is survival. we need.
3.
it is a chill night in Bethlehem, we
linger in cold air. interlocked arms,
catching each other from slipping on
icy stones. we are so close for warmth.
near-sighted, i am singing with my shower
voice. you
are the reed bed i call out to
all of my days, i sung for you, longing
to risk anything worth everything,
with you, i am innocent of knowing.
i want to feel myself love.
4.
what a word. how do you define
a word that is so often laughed out
of a room? without it, i’ve seen
the strongest weep, bend, break
5.
the senses we shared, the many
moments in between recollecting
them, they happened to us as
a biblical story might happen
to God. it is poetry but hardly
speaks for what words could never
say. we live every song sung about
this. we offer the world a new creation
myth, one of our doing, selah.
6.
star street was humming in fog
or our hearts breathing near
each other was so loud the air
became what we would not say
or God is what was between
and within, each laugh bloomed
from you as if a body lifting
the cold, i saw words stretch out
of your throat. i wanted to brave
your exhale shaking down the street.
we laughed a holy laugh and filled
an empty road with it
7.
and if we boil it down to the sheer
coincidences of events that lead
to now, the strayed chances of our
first encounter, a fight for better
lives leads one to love or a boy dies
and a girl too. daring or defiant
another dies and another, until it is all
we know, another and another.
every damn day is a coffin. were we
numb we would not have journeyed
toward justice or what was it? every step
forward is a glance backward. is this
freedom? fighting for it? each country
we meet is a country of fighting.
8.
sometimes i fear when you walk out
that door, you won’t come back.
i worry we won’t see a wedding
day or watch our children choose
names to live up to or help our son
lock his hair like his daddy does or
how our daughter tells long-winded
stories to be heard by you, just like
her mama does. i try not to worry.
i pray. i love hard. i say, let’s live
a little, come home. i’ll wash
the dishes, i’ll cook, i’ll clean,
i’ll leave love notes on the mirror
every day for you. i won’t ask for
no future, if that’s askin too much. am i
askin too much? don’t die. i’m here,
fighting, too. every day.
9.
how many cuddles have we configured
between these two bodies of ours? we
twist ourselves and uncover heavenly
nooks to nap within. a ceremony of our
meditated nows. i love your body. i love
my body when it is with your body.
entangled, a vine of snug limbs.
10.
i just want to smoke a spliff in the open air
with you, listen to frank ocean, write poems,
jump into waves and recite psalms.
mi vida
for umi
a fan winnowing from the wall purrs, swings back and forth. he lies between my legs after morning moans in the mirror. havana’s breath is on our bodies midday. he smells like the sweat of a rusted machete dripping cane in an old sugar mill. we tire easily del sol and nap in the nude, listening to calle de san lázaro sigh. the window above our bed is a seashell of chain-smokes. vintage buicks, fords, and chevrolets swim by, nostalgic for antes de la revolución, rickshaws babbling in exhaust. socialism sounds like a broken muffler beyond the pane. i twist his hair in the heat of june and oil the scalp with butter, the stubble on his cheek scratches my inner thigh, giggles on the lips. we kiss like children protest—naïve, defiant, serious play. my mouth dribbling along is, too, heading south, a foot soldier in the mountains. ideal terrain for rebellion, our bodies divided by deep river valleys and abrupt fault lines. these guajira hands tend to him like the meat of a coconut, dripping in milk, i caress the surrendering. sí, mi vida, sí. like that, nature convenes and all around, we are a temple of blues. sky, sea, and sand. many faces and reflections. our room is an island of fresh air. in defense of the earth, our bodies make love. we breathe in and exhale, sprung as if breezes from the bay, hushed above rickety floorboards. sí, mi vida, sí.
la riad hammam
two women bathe one another
the eldest gestures her head back
a tin pail pours fresh water
squeezing a hand of hair, rinsing soapsuds,
tiny bubbles dribble down her elbow
another all belly and bump, carries her naked
son on her hip out the sauna, glowing hot steam
children tapping toes in the splash
an elder kneads black soap, calves
on wet stone, pampering, we swash
cupfuls on heaving breasts, hair hushed
between our legs, we are water beds
holy in a maenad harem
what of a woman with grooves
what of washing
a scarred lower back
stretch marks
the graffiti thighs
of a goddess
the ways of the many
you rise a witch bleeding gently in morning
fanning flies from fruit
you slice an avocado open and spoon the pit out
sprinkle sea salt and cayenne pepper
put a pot to boil on the stove
stuff sage and rosebud in a strainer
your hair is messy, eye boogers in the corners
you smell like a sleeping beauty who sweat
her kinks out in the second coming
like sticky dates in soiled hands
olive and enchanted
like bronzed blood panties
washed and hung from a clothesline midafternoon
you are a wildflower just after a thunderstorm
guava juice dripping on a chin
you are what is graceless
hardly regal before noon
daphne
able hands
snaps stems
rinses vegetables
chops and steams
coils heat on
an electric stove
boils gently
a tender
temperature of torture
gives quietly
sifting oil on steel
garlic and onion
simmer the room
morsels of soft yam
eggplant, parsnip, kale
candied, curried, and salted
to taste
the shape of ease
we eat mouthfuls
well fed
she nurtures and asks
nothing of tomorrow
but today
sipping wine,
we mock our mirrors
stare and play dress-up
a sparkle here,
a lip stain there
a thousand ways
to nourish
a sister
a portrait
for carrie
grace is a stretch you walk
sitting or kneeling after a stroll,
an exhale at a sanctuary of sounds
the string, the harp, and woodwind quartet
a rhythm section plays for you
a cacophony cuddled in a chest
arms or wings blazing a poetic field
of tone, the forlorn sound of a trumpet
a constant ref
rain of resist
all daughters in movement
the gods of grief
a stream visited by wringing hands
at the foot of thirst, a wild mare on wounded knee
tending to self
not knowing
to accept or let go
sister in the pews
fanning, prayers, holding space
a skirt tail between fingers
overlooking, shedding
whatever frets the eye
tomorrow
for the hip-hop shakespeare company
yesterday i was the toa river
where my grandmother rinsed her feet
and cupped water in her hands
toward her face
dripping down her chin
along, soft clay between her legs,
sculpting a mother
a body bathing in daybreak,
bleeding beautiful
the fish skirt around her calves
dragonflies babble on her neck
the sun sets her skin ablaze
she howls toward the horizon
tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
i will be a torch in my daughter’s throat.
i will tire on her tongue and massacre a moon
in her mouth, to mold a streetlamp from a stream into a star.
she will speak soft as a sword
severing the night
a candle in a cave
a flash in a tunnel
the tracks to a train
with no station.
the color of milky way will ballroom
dance in the battleship of her beauty
violent as joy
her laughter will roar of rivers i was
tomorrow
today
yesterday
i wrestle with the oars in my chest,
hands dance dim in the dawn, a canoe in a creek.
i watch my breath glimmer in the blur of distance,
sought after, born in the twilight.
i was a time between time.
when humans owned humans,
bones blew in the wind chime.
my grandchildren swallow the sound of weeping words
and wait for a witness,
tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
i will be a raven in the breeze
my feathers will caw above the heads of all my lovers
tripping beneath. i was a first kiss lingering on the lower lip,
tomorrow, i will be the last.
men will study my jaw and wonder of the way
we will the elements with our poems
all of our yesterdays are beamy fools
shivering in the sleep of safety, nearly dead, dying,
life was but a walking shadow. i was but a hum.
but i sung. i sung. i sung until a darkness vanished
the dreamers won
we woke to an ancient future