.poetry.

napowrimo11 #20: factual

Chanda — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:15:14 +0000

I am seventeen
syllables of horribly
disfigured heart, ache.

napowrimo11 #19: The Physics of How We Live

Chanda — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:03:34 +0000

“One cannot transcend trauma,” she says.
And that’s what we worry abut
so we clench and clench and clench
knowing that perhaps we are hammering in
nails that will keep us trapped
beneath dirt and grass and flowers
in an underworld of trauma
and traumatic aftermath
and memories of teeth in
bloody pools
muscles that could not stop crying
EMTs afraid of infection yelling
And each time you’re thinking:
I can go back and make it unhappen!
These are the fibres that we bundle into
the spacetime of aftermath
The number of pills today is the metric.

napowrimo11 #18: selfish

Chanda — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:06:54 +0000

People often ask each other
Please don’t die
I love you I love you
I haven’t spoken to you in
months and years
but you mean the world to me
I know you’re suffering
you’re old
and life is long
but you mean the world to me
and I need you
no matter what
You’re an important idea
I like to keep in my back pocket
why would you take that away from me?
Don’t you feel loved?
No, I can’t call right now
I’ve got my own life
and you’re not in it.

napowrimo11 #17: anger

Chanda — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:56:12 +0000

in my fantasy
when you come home
I am sitting in the corner
in darkness
in tears
in death
in all of the things that
would torture you

in reality
whether you are here or not
guilt keeps me upright on a couch
the lights on
the tv blaring
the fingers moving across a keyboard
all of the things that
feign life.

napowrimo11 #16: being art

Chanda — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:46:35 +0000

we of the curlied
hairs are missing even
when there is colour.

napowrimo11 #15: D.C. Emancipation Day 2011

Chanda — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:23:26 +0000

A woman’s right to choose
should not be relative to
socioeconomic status
in the history of this country
where Black women
lived under slavery
under white men
in a white building
still tryin to tell em what to do
with their bodies.
And the Black man who’s supposed to get in their way?
He said, well, I ain’t happy about it.
And then he signed my uterus away.

napowrimo11 #14: Cod fish cakes

Chanda — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 01:19:59 +0000

She looks me in the eye and with some urgency says
I left Barbados on my birthday
I’m trying not to cry as the tears well up in
her eyes.

I came because I wanted my children
to have a better life.
She tells me this over and over
And I am thinking

About leaving home
And becoming Black American to whites
And immigrant trash to Black Americans
Coming to America

To suffer at the hands of family
To March with the King
To watch your son sent to war
To watch your husband die too young.

She tells him:
She’s my only granddaughter.
I was there when she was born.
She is grandma, swelling with pride.

I fear she knows I didn’t know
to have pride in her
all the times I should have shown it
but didn’t know how.

And now her vocal chords are weakening
her voice fading
with urgency she asks:
do you remember how to make cod fish cakes?

This used to offend me.
I have to learn just because I’m a girl?
But now, I realize,
none of that matters.

In her unwritten recipe lives
a little piece of Barbados
the island she left on her birthday
so that I could become.

And I know
I will learn to remember
if it’s the last thing I do.

napowrimo11 #13: to write

Chanda — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:41:04 +0000

I would like to write a poem
But my neck hurts
and my body is agony
and it’s hard to imagine life
as not agony
when my neck is screaming
help
me
it begs
and I run to get the aleve
the tylenol
the anything please please god if you existed why
I move slowly
with great sadness and care and wanting
to not make mistakes
to turn it and move it
back into place
knowing the whole time
the imminent failure
and finally its reality.

So you see,
I’d like to write a poem
but I can’t right now.

napowrimo11 #12: motivate

Chanda — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:52:44 +0000

I lived for the day when
I could twirl like Jane Austen.

napowrimo11 #11: what I learned

Chanda — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:05:36 +0000

I am, my entire existence
is,
essentially,
a series of mistakes.