152/365 : Out Of Love

my bedroom is a bliss cave
my body is a bat
turning words upside down
spitting the shrill sound of facts:

2 sisters in India, gang-raped
hanged from a tree

6 college kids in Cali

murdered in a spree

humanity 

gone gruesome  

my bedroom was a casket 

my body was a corpse

these words were stuck in the crevices

of my cervix and worse

my heart was shroud with nesting

where nobody could thrive

holes hung straight through the middle

and like bullets, i let lies

hit hit hit ply ply ply

gather me like dead juicy flesh

eat me like they aced the test

our bedroom is a disgrace

and our bodies wear dirty clothes

we're wrapped in stories of disrespect

and we're walking around like nobody knows

what it's like to have a mother

stand before a father 

spit anger in his face

say, "no more! i will not be erased!"

what it's like to have a father

who does not erase a mother

what it's like to have a mother

who insists on her power

i want to be a sister who can

fall into a brother

cry fear into his arms

ask only for the strong hold of kin

to over-win the intimidation

of someone trying to own me

i want to have a brother

who will not cower
in the face
of burlier men

i want to depend on burly men 

who understand
that their greatest power

is always in their kindness

i want to depend on myself
to share the shrill and shameful truth
that i do not feel safe here
in this family
that i have pretended for far too long

i need a home where we all know

that the walls will not be laced with the shadows of lust

where we love bigger than creating monsters 

out of a scarcity of trust

where there's enough kindness to stop and speak softness

into the places where we've hardened
felt rejected, or just too much

i need a home where sensitivity is not too much

where we can barrel over and ball 

for a thousand unwanted thrusts

where we can look at each other and crawl

back to the beginning, like we must

i need a home of generous men

generous with curiosity 

generous carrying their weight

generous by adding gentleness to the fate
of our good family

i need a home of brazen women

that will roar and teem 

and not tame their grief
out of fear or cynicism 

who will show up
hurt and humble

or wise and powerful

and say we, we will dance this trauma out

i need to hear the bloody truth

i need to see us clean it up, together

i need to taste something better than

avoidance, blame or shame

i need to feel us claiming what we are worthy to claim:

love, in the face of a genocide of spirit

love, in the face of a quieted epidemic

love, in the face of a man with a gun

love, in the face of everyone beginning to shout

love, in the face of our doubt that we are smart enough to figure it out

love that gets down on its knees and begs us to do better

better for our babies 

better for their babies

better for seven generations of babies to come

may we make them 

today

out of love