(july 2013) Step one of growing older in the presence of the elderly: observe how the giants of your childhood wither into frailtyStep two: begin to second guess every eccentricity Is this what they meant by signs to look for?When did she get so small?How could she have ever forgotten my birthday?Step three: dance around her with the nervousness reserved for the ill.She will look at you with the resentment that can only come from those whom illness has only left shame and regret. Step four: begin to hold her hand again. It is one to thing to care for…
Re: Old Age
Day 8- Write a cinquain on a topic of your choice. maybe she lost all that weight so you could get used to seeing your giants shrink to nothing.
In Your Old Age
Day 3- Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem. Senescence is the great equaliser. great men, average men, men of faith, men of none living life with the promise that some of its secrets will be revealed but all you will ever learn are verbs like forgetting and dying.
Upon Review
Day 2- Who was the last person you texted? Write a five-line poem to that person. I cannot write about you. Poetry reveals truths And I cannot hear those truths Without revealing hurts. I still have not healed from your last wounds.
Bedtime Stories
I read to you because my mother read to me. And in those moments I felt as loved and as safe as a strangely paranoid and anxious child could feel -Certainly more safe than the rote prayers that my grandmother made me parrot back to her made me feel- And for years -long after I’d stopped remembering to pray- I couldn’t fall asleep without reading.
Diaspora Dysphoria
Look I write something! I’m actually trying to perform this for the One World show my school has every year. I just auditioned it today, so let’s hope for the best <3 Still have to work of some of it, but most of it is here. Diaspora Dysphoria I am a child of diaspora. Last name I have no ties to, First name my mother heard on Sesame Street, Names give me no solace. My mama’s mama was a product of love soured By a nationwide obsession with race and colour: A story of a baby too brown For anyone…
mama doesn’t want to grow old
mama doesn’t want to grow old. bones breaking, mouth drooling, jaw slack, some one to clean you change you chew and swallow for you. mama saw her mama whither. prisoner of her feeble body, jailed by her failing mind. a sliver of a shadow of her former self. mama doesn’t want to lose her mind or be trapped as her body crumbles. mama wants me to cut her off to unplug her to give her the red pill and release her. but mama doesn’t think about after mama doesn’t think about me. because when they ask ‘where’s your mama?’ i’ll…