residue

poems for the muse

I think I should share the stuff I write in anger. The spewy, projectile frustration I write in the dark, where grammar and spelling make no difference. These days I have been thinking about the “gaze”. You know, that gaze. The inescapable one that runs a highlighter glow around every bit of being a woman.

Why not? You might hate it. It’s okay to hate it. I have chickened out of posting this series so many times. So many times. But it’s my birthday month and I think I owe it to myself. Another layer of thick skin. Another step into discomfort. Another middle finger to my fear.

Here is a poem and some images I made…

Residue.

Who taught you to look at yourself like that?
Who taught beauty to dislike our bodies?

I want to take the word muse
and peel it out of my dictionary
like a worn sticker

Sprinkle sugar on its gummy side
and watch ants eat the skin that is left
They’ll take it underground in chunks
feed it to their queen
who will birth it into other ants

They’ll move in determined thousands
a marching exclamation
a swarm of bodies in refusal
tearing sugar from worn out words.