Category: Emotional Health
lost mail packages
I discover kernels in poems. The shell breaks open to a singed blossom of hair. Before I spit the weirdness out, I savor a reeling storm in my nose and mouth. For a split second, I see a topiary. I awake to dreams; perhaps they are catchers to my middle-aged Read more
don’t you dare (pop), boy
did someone burst your bubble, boy? or did you just have too much to drink? get your lies drunk and high as you? coat them in effervescence until your lungs fly you away? you were always ready, boy, ready to pop. and you know you’ll never get it back, get Read more
FLATLINED
chemically gagged pharmaceutically silenced. swallowing tiny thieves of nuance and vibrancy until depth and hue crumble like damp sawdust into a shallow, timeless grave of monotony nestled by my heart an internal barometer measuring emotional vitality no longer responsive a total obliteration of moods each one simply truncated where stormy Read more
Girls in my head-a bipolar poem
We all had our own talents, ways of coping with the mirror monster, whatever that looked like for you, always mocking gestures and laughing to your face as you wept with the weight of it all. You held yourself together one way, and I another and these are the girls Read more
write through this with me
when you write it down write it heart-loud write it first in burgundy like the blood that pulses through each of our veins, insecure it waits there in the quiver of the readying call-to-action that trauma throws into motion—it’s the healing write through this with me take a Read more
Black Women’s Acts of Resistance and Resilience to Trauma
Dineen skillfully dug her purple latex-swathed fingers into my bare left shoulder blade, and I yelped, “O-o-o-uch!” “Sor-ry!” Dineen cheerfully apologized. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she enjoyed torturing me. But this wasn’t that kind of relationship. Dineen is a petite, dark-haired, twenty-something Filipina physical therapist Read more
Souvenirs of a rape victim
left behind in broken bits her scattered shadows dribble into eerie crevices spider webs and souvenirs of your violated presence henna palm stains as you pushed scratched on walls ankle bell trinkets unhinged scattered in shock rusty red patches as you scavenged of flesh that dripped into his stale breath Read more