Crown Noble

by Bianca Phipps

  my skin crawls with phantom legs

  a learned response

  in childhood

  my home was planted on the edge of a southern forest

  my bedroom window turned my room lighthouse

  summoned all the underbrush crawlers to nest inside

  i left the window open in mid-july

  the scent of my sleep sweat sung across the wood

  an invitation i didn’t know i handed out

  i woke to find i’d been invaded

  the second story security

  scattered scuttled

  along the walls the floor the bed

  nothing mine but my scream wide mouth eyes shut

  and my parents ran in

  swore it was all a dream

  i knew they were wrong

  and that they must be right:

  if i had not dreamed it

  it would become another shedskindust

  to sweep under the rug

  so i—dutiful daughter despite the damage—

  let it slink out of the room

  this shadow i could never name again

  until

  in adolescence

  i’d grown older by a fistful of months

  and a few familial fractures

  living in a selfish house with

  no room for our growing bodies

  i left the door open

  a memory of fresh air

  the hall light like the moon

  a warm, dim glow

  slung across the wooden slats

  to the foot of my bed

  there is an animal part of us that thrives on instinct:

  some feral ghost trapped in sinew

  follows the light finds a bone to suck dry

  sucks the bone dry uncovers a feast

  some of our ghosts are the feast

  the bloody wreckage left behind

  everything glows in amber:

  i remember no sharp teeth

  no dirt under my nails

  no soft lullaby of smothering

  i remember what has no name:

  the feeling of hands like bugs like fingers like

  crawling like

  a touch can steal my breath in all the wrong ways

  i did not scream. i remembered that much.

  when they came, the room would be empty

  and my body would be hollow

  and they’d shake their heads and say a dream

  a dream with hands like eyes like

  a boy with my blood and yet none of it like

  a bug sucks blood and knows nothing else like

  i left the door open, so.

  i slept on top of the covers, so.

  i had this dream before, so.

  a dream can’t hurt you if you’re still, so.

  i closed my eyes. waited for everything to end.

  felt my skin crawl away with him

  that good ghost dribbled out of his hungry

  hands.

  in time

  these old dreams like unseen cobwebs

  startle me back to the past.

  melt into one swampy puddle, slip through my fingers.

  i mix the bugs with the boy until they are one:

  thorax against my thigh. antennae over my stomach.

  his mouth opens to whisper he’s sorry

  and a thousand slugs fall out.

  A RHYTHM A PATTERN

  the language of history

  is blood

  & mine raves in the streets

  a seized capillary pulsing

  the inherited panic

  bathes in my aorta

  what is history if not

  a vein that pumps from

  the heart

  of where you come from

  & who brought you

  into today

  & who leaves you

  made better or worse

  guilt is the heartsong

  i will sing at my funeral

  i am the ventricle

  through which it all flows

  never the daughter or sister or girl

  but the hollow

  through which everything falls

  apart

  ANOTHER NOTE ABOUT MY FATHER

  spring semester of my sophomore year of college

  my father told me without my love, he would kill himself.

  I have always been the confessional booth &

  the silent deity on the other side.

  guilt, the noose that ties me to home.

  he slips his head in the loop & tosses me the other end.

  when I try to leave

  we will all come swinging down.

  THE DREAM

  after Felix Pollack

  I dreamt of my brother disappearing and returning as a doll.

  Guilt, said my therapist.

  You should call home more, said my father.

  Grief is a twisted comfort, said my love.

  You miss him as a child, said my therapist.

  The phone works both ways, I said to my father’s voicemail.

  You hold a lot of love in your heart and it curdles

  because you leave it there, said the fog.

  I dreamt he disappeared & what I meant is he died

  & they gave me a doll to mourn over, I said.

  Guilt twists itself into grief, said my therapist.

  Who would you be without your mourning? said the fog.

  Everyone always dreams about me

  doing what they don’t want me to do, said my brother.

  I don’t want you to die, I said.

  But then I won’t grow older, he said. Then I’ll be young forever.

  We all dream of dying, said my father.

  We don’t always get to follow our dreams, said the fog.

  I just wanted to fly, said my brother. You’ll always see me in the mourning.

  SURVIVOR’S WEIGHT

  all the small boys on the street

  look like my brothers. all the

  small boys are sunkissed. they

  eat joy. their freckles spell my

  name and my freckles spell theirs.

  all the small boys are my brothers.

  I walk away from them. all the

  small boys are my brothers. they’re

  all strangers. a small brown boy

  jumped in front of the bullets to

  protect his classmates and I avoid

  all the videos. I am a coward and

  all the small brown boys are dying.

  when we were placed in foster care

  they took Jack from me. put him in

  a different home. he would be down

  the road, they said to me. he’ll be

  safe and you can be a child. it was

  all foreign to me. like he is. I love all

  the small boys on the street because

  they don’t know how I hurt them. I

  love my brothers more than I hate

  myself and that’s why I didn’t run

  away when I had the chance. I waited

  until it wasn’t running away. it was

  going to college. a small brown boy

  jumped in front of the bullets and

  now he doesn’t get to go to college.

  I wanted to be that child and now

  my brothers aren’t going to college.

  we don’t all get to choose how we

  escape but I did. all I regret is that

  I don’t regret my choice enough.

  CROWN GARLAND

  when i found out steven was in jail

  (steven is my brother. the middle child.

  the boy i raised. the boy i fed. the boy

  with a feral laugh and a homesick cry.

  steven is a piece of my soul. my brother—

  my child. i was a child when i raised him:

  children raising children. then i left.

  i left. each thought backward threatened

  to
turn me salt. threatened to turn me

  stone. threatened to send him back to hell.

  it could be any myth. he and i both know

  the tender way a knife slides out of muscle

  like a person slides out of the house at night.

  blood comes from the holding and we never

  grasped how to unfurl our fists.

  pride clouds my throat like a bone. i am

  left to choke on curdled apologies. i

  sound selfish, and it’s because i am. i

  could never love him more than myself.

  steven, i apologize too late. i come

  home and the locks have been changed

  and the children have been changed, too.

  steven, my soul was splintered long ago

  and the cracks have filled with guilt. it

  looks like old smiles and the first summer

  you ran away. sorry i didn’t look longer.

  sorry i stopped looking at all. my eyes

  aren’t closed anymore. i keep calling

  olly olly oxen free. it’s getting dark.

  you can come home now. it’s safe. you’re

  safe.)

  i waited two days to cry.

  CLOUDMOTHER

  Nina doesn’t dream of motherhood. Nina doesn’t have anything to prove. Nina doesn’t run her tongue over inherited trauma. Nina is not afraid of what rattles in her brain. She knows the names of the plagues. Names are the difference between cured and curdled. Nina knows this. Nina finds power in the names. Nina knows what is hereditary and what can be cleansed with attention. Nina is a master of attention. Nina doesn’t imagine the ways a child could be ruined: a bloody birth, the argument that breaks the dishes, words as sharp as the slap, mornings coated in slick smoke, a fist that impresses the wall, a stray comment, a stray bullet, a bullet on target, curdled love, herself, the wrong babysitter, the wrong choice, the wrong name. Nina doesn’t dwell on fear. Nina doesn’t dwell on wonder. Nina is not afraid. Nina doesn’t think parenting requires a prerequisite. Nina thinks she could be a good parent and the thought alone satisfies. Nina has never felt unequipped. Really, Nina isn’t afraid of herself. Really, that’s all it takes.

  PRO-CHOICE

  i was unwanted.

  my first name was

  how could you do this to me?

  they love me now, yes.

  doesn’t alleviate the sting.

  sometimes, i’m mean

  to the people that love me

  because i know i’m not

  supposed to be here.

  i took this life

  from her.

  whoever my mother

  could have been

  if she’d had a choice.

  WHITE RIVER WRITES HOME

  I love you. I used to want it simpler, yet

  I am of your mold. The fact of love is all it takes.

  Like you, I worry what you’d think of me

  if you knew the whole truth. Dad, I am just a girl:

  clove and cinnamon, two clasped daisies,

  a load-bearing responsibility. I know you

  love me, Dad, and I know the parts of me

  you hate. Daughter is not enough context

  to cover it all. I don’t keep you at an arm’s

  length because of your heart. It’s mine.

  My heart is a messy liar. The silence between

  us shoves everything under the bed. A clean

  room hides my iridescent heart. A stunted

  tongue stutters blood over the past and becomes

  the truth to everyone who wasn’t there.

  A metaphor blurs the face of who you call

  daughter even when she doesn’t call you.

  I want you to love me and I want to be the

  sole bearer of truth. The two are only aligned

  in silence. So I was quiet. I need to be loud now,

  Dad. I need my love to gleam in the sunlight.

  I used to dream we remained as ghosts.

  We haunted a new family and never talked

  about our own. We ached for the sun. Love

  doesn’t belong to ghosts, Dad. Love belongs

  to the living. I am alive, Dad. I tended to the blooms

  I watched you cut at the root. Here is the sun:

  I could love a woman like I love my man.

  I’d want you to love her like you love me:

  honest, unquestioned, shameless. But you can’t

  if you don’t know. Now you know. You were

  always afraid I’d never be able to love. You

  worried you had scratched that part of my heart

  to dirt. Love is alive in me, Dad. I love myself,

  Dad. You could give up on me now and I

  wouldn’t starve. But I’d never be full.

  Forgiveness is not a relentless feast. It is a slow

  turn toward the light. I ask shame to leave

  and reverse its mantras:

  I am good.

  No parts of me are broken.

  I am not a shattered mirror.

  I am a human with a great capacity for delight.

  I am loved and become love in return.

  I forgive myself

  and, always, myself is also you.

  MY FATHER’S EULOGY, EDITED

  we are here to celebrate

  a good father

  we gathered here to honor

  his name

  he always wanted me to

  remember

  his name

  he was something

  special

  he

  always dreamed of living

  he did love me

  &

  isn’t that all I yearned to know

  ?

  NINA REDUX

  Nina doesn’t practice the piano. Nina doesn’t eat sweet potatoes. Nina doesn’t kiss her girlfriend in secret or in public or at all. Nina doesn’t know the taste of her brother’s cooking. Nina doesn’t praise her father’s success. Nina doesn’t cherish the melody of her mother’s true laugh. Nina doesn’t craft her children’s middle names. Nina doesn’t clip coupons, doesn’t tend to the tulips, doesn’t walk Harriet twice a day. Nina doesn’t learn forgiveness is not a metaphor but an eternal gift. Nina doesn’t have the walks to Blockbuster. Nina doesn’t have the drive to Disney World. Nina doesn’t press the good memories for preservation. Nina doesn’t learn sacrifice is the seed of gratitude. Nina doesn’t learn that survival is the sprout of everyone that cried before. Nina doesn’t carry her mother’s trauma in her locket, her father’s grief in her wallet. Nina doesn’t carry her parents’ love in her spine. Nina can’t celebrate her brothers’ victory. Nina can’t call home, call back, call forth. Nina can’t live. Nina is the handcrafted portrait of the southern woods at dusk, and I am the view through the window: in motion, untouchable, drenched in the sun.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I have an immense amount of gratitude to these publications for housing the following poems, some in different forms:

  Electric Moon Magazine: “I Am All the Roots”

  indicia: “Flypaper”

  Blue River Review: “Family Portrait, 1995”

  I am so incredibly thankful to Button Poetry for believing in this book and me.

  Thank you to the folks who read the early drafts of this manuscript. You helped me shape these scribblings into a coherent exploration of self: Hanif Abdurraqib, Safia Elhillo, Kevin Kantor, Sienna Burnett, Emryse Geye, Devin Devine, Madeline Lessing.

  I’m eternally grateful to the artists that I have learned from, some of whom I am lucky enough to call my friends. I have gleaned and hoarded and cherished everything you have gifted me: Bernard Ferguson, Daniela Aguilar, Gina Conto, Spencer Althoff, Grace Hutchings, Alina Burgos, Hannah Carmichael, Adrienne Novy, Caroline M. Watson, Teagan Walsh-Davis, Felix Mayes, Dru Smith, Rashaad Hall, Ken Arkind, Carrie Rudzinski, Isaac Gomez, Jesse Parent, Billy Tuggle, Hannah Clark, Sarah Brown, Kati
e Becker Colón, Ezra Colón, Matthew Olson, Sarah Adler, Jessie Ellingsen, Hieu Ngyuen, Dylan Garity, Neil Hilborn, Madison Mae Parker, Hilary Williams, Spencer Huffman, and countless others.

  Thank you to my internet friends: Alethea, Sondra, Lydia, Molly, Lauren, Kelsey, Sarah, Aliera, Dree, Daniel, the rest—Alice and I are always indebted to you. Thank you for giving me a safe place to grow.

  I want to thank Opera House, Friendship Ave, all three CUPSI teams. I would have never made it out of college alive if it weren’t for your constant companionship, love, tenacity.

  Thank you to the 22nd class. #48hands

  Thank you to Chris Stewart and Maya Garcia. You have never given up on me and I will never give up on you.

  I want to say thank you to the educators that got me here, and specifically to Brian Eanes. I think everyone in the world needs an educator like you. You were my first champion. I’ll never be able to repay you.

  I want to thank you, Sam. I trust you. I love you. Thank you for everything.

  I want to thank my family. It takes a village, and mine is the best. Mom, Dad, Steven, Jack: I love you. It is as simple and complex as that. You helped shape me into the person I’ve become. I love her, and I love you.

  Thank you, reader, for picking this book out of thousands and making it this far.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bianca Phipps (she/her) is a queer Latinx poet, actor, and teaching artist raised in San Antonio, Texas. Her work has been featured in different mediums and in different places, including Button Poetry, Blue River Review, Electric Moon Magazine, indicia, Persephone’s Daughters, and others. Phipps’ theatrical credits include Romeo & Juliet, Othello, Julius Caesar (Nebraska Shakespeare), Hamlet (Midsommer Flight), I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (u/s, Steppenwolf), Welcome to Keene, New Hampshire (Strawdog Theater), and others. She is an Aquarius, an Enneagram 2, and a Slytherin. She currently lives in Chicago.

  Twitter: @biancajphipps

  Instagram: @biancaphipps

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