Quickly,
before a man tells you the infinity of women,
let me try and sound my drums the loudest,
let me beat this into your hand,
so you forever have a scar to frame your face with.
Not the ugly scars you spend caking powder upon,
but the beautiful ones, shaped something like-
sunflowers, texas, hearts, or lightening bolts.
I am an organic wanderer,
farming up ideas of the people,
people quieter than me,
People who have been taught to never speak, unless spoken to.
The same traditions I thought died with my great-grandparents generation,
but a genocide that still, very much exists.
I am the voice for those remaining so near to mute-hood,
they can't even recognize their own ideas,
especially after they've been dipped in ink, and capitalized.
People say "hey man, it's a tough world out there."
Cliches, like "roll with the punches." Or
"Keep on trucking."
Strands of words, interpreted by the simplest of men.
Causing the most complicated to question the simplicity of life.
And we buy into it, us women, we buy their purses,
we buy their shirts, with clever lines printed across our breasts,
because we think it makes us revolutionaries,
when in fact, we become the walking billboard for a world of fashion,
designed by men.
If we can sum up our lives in one philosophical fortune cookie,
then aren't we finished here?
Isn't our work done?
in response to ideas being murdered and raped,
girls tell me media is their muse,
with muted MTV in the background,
Lady gaga spreading her legs in a music video,
singing about freedoms we all had the chance to display first,
even before she copied Madonna,
before pointed bras were back in style.
All of these repeat offenders,
they tell ME, I am wrong.
They ask me questions starting in egotistical slurs,
ending with question marks, hoping I'll interpret their mind fucks
as silly, simple questions.
How dare you forget, NO one is smarter than me.
Have you ever seen the sunset on the glass of an ocean?
I am the woman standing beneath the sea,
capturing the colors, transforming them into words,
so you can hear about the way the sun looks,
while you sit upon mountain tops.
Ignoring the news, fires started by pure laziness,
by the flick of a cellular ember into a forrest
of dry brains, just waiting to be ignited.
And when that fire comes,
they run to us, like tortured, misguided ants,
asking for all the answers.
I have a purple ego,
mellow, yet still it exists.
WOMEN,
I beg of you,
PLEASE give me a reason
to feel like I shouldn't have an ego dripped in lace?
You stand around,
breast in hands,
butt in air,
taking money for sex,
trading looks for souls.
Arguing about how many things you can fit within your holes.
Where is the purpose driven woman?
Where did she go?
The women set on being far more intelligent
than any man they ever wrote about in the bible.
Because in the bible,
ladies, we were nothing but whorish burdens.
And yet, you look to the God who cast you away,
into years of suffering,
menstruation,
the pain of being devirginized,
child birth,
we are the ones who can, and will be raped.
Yet we fall to our knees and say "Thy will be done."
And yes, we are so close to being done,
I am waiting for your skin to burn,
so I can flip you within your tanning bed pan.
none of your flat, drawn out hair twirls,
and sexy curves can be undone.
So the rest of us,
become so ashamed of the rest of you,
we can't help but run.
Run from generalization,
Because if there is something I hate,
it is the acceptance of my fate.
I am woman,
woman stays home,
woman cleans gun,
woman gives birth,
woman shoots self.
When asked about starvation,
you respond with
"Oh no, haven't done that in years."
and cast away microphones within your eerie blush.
And sure, I do not speak of all of you,
the rest of you are poets,
stuck on the inspiration of marijuana,
with this fake ass hippie mind-set,
you speak of "energy" and "flow".
stuck on the migraine keeping you from speaking your mind.
Did you ever once think,
it may be your mind that is keeping you from surpassing the migraine?
Do you ever feel afraid?
What about the mothers of this world?
Drenching our daughters in every shade of pink,
We start off as blank canvas,
and if that's the case,
then PLEASE, cast every mother of every daughter into a fire.
We teach them how to primp,
how to be prim and proper,
how to take care of men.
This is NOT how women should stand.
Un-united, catty, two faced, bitches.
If you can be best described as a dog,
then where have you let your life wander?
I am not the woman you fuck and forget,
I am the wet dream you refuse to wake from.
Because in the heat of my passion,
I will question everything within you,
until you are forced to come to terms with the universe.
I am a universal symbol.
I do not rhyme with money,
I do not taste like honey.
I am the big fish, eating the bear at the bottom of the pond.
The more you realize,
I am powerful,
the more we will have in common.

Belly of the whale

I only wish you could see how perfect I look naked these days,
Glistening in the candle light, tanned by the blush of sex.
Here we still stand,
300 feet apart,
remembering exactly
what it means to hold one another again.
I can feel your nervous pull,
while it drenches a fire within
with kerosine and 11 bottles of rum.
I know you remember what it's like to taste this tender flesh.
It leaks champagne sweat, and you imagine yourself,
drunk off my disposable liquids.
I see how you covet my breasts
and insist on misunderstanding
my laughs of good nature,
as laughs of romance and fearful longing.
You create bitter bites along my spine,
and connect the dots,
until you read what you've been longing to read for years.
"I've moved on."
And in this bitter flash of reality,
spelled across my shoulder bones,
you shudder to think that I can exist without you.
No, I am no longer stuck within the belly of your whale.
I don't mourn our ghosts, dancing across the numbers
painted in pink laying humbly in front of my home.
No,
you have slept so many summers away from me,
I hardly remember just what it was I loved about you.
Because as we stand here,
300 feet apart,
you can't even make me smile.
You so desperately try,
to look into my eyes, and avoid the arrogance I leak.
I know I am the upper hand,
and this is something you'll never grace upon my cheek,
ever again.
300 feet away,
I stand by a man, I once watched
trace spiderwebs through my heart and soul,
binding them so tight, I swear I could never be released,
from the pitiful, and foul skeleton locks,
only, and once,
carelessly unlocked by the hand of your gloved arm.
You reached into me,
and planted the seed of insecurity,
and the waves of self loathing came in long steady tsunamis,
until I located that part within,
and tricked her into taking her old and miserable life with her.
To the floor of the ocean, to treetops, and mountain peaks.
I watched her drown, fall, and disappear into banks of pure snow.
and now you have no schizophrenic minions of mine,
You're left wondering, who is left to mourn the old you,
and now that, she, the insecurity, fades away into a swift, suicidal explosion.
how will you ever return to unlock the best parts of me?

bad news

I don't like bracing myself for bouts of terrible information.
Bad news,
bad news,
bad news,
Fuck, it's everywhere.
It drips off the noses of everyone,
it's laying on my bed,
it's flying in the sky,
it's glowing red,followed by green.
It's handsome, and it's smiling at me.
It's fragile and decaying on my front porch.
It's making me blush
so hard that I've forgotten about complexion.
It's burning down my forrest.
bad news.

Letters to myself

Dear me,
Feel GOOD.
Feel far,
feel freaky,
feel fantastic,
feel fucked up,
feel anything.
Feel anxiety,
feel overwhelmed,
feel sheltered,
feel fragile,
feel smart,
feel beautiful.
Feel something.
feel frustrated,
feel loved,
feel gracious,
feel happy,
feel grateful,
Feel anything.
feel sharp,
feel dull,
feel life,
feel content,
feel sorrow,
feel grief,
Feel God.
feel something.
Feel soft,
feel laughter,
feel crazy,
feel energetic,
feel pain,
feel fear.
feel.
feel.
feel.
anything.

The plants.

I have a place
in my backyard
where ivy rules,
where trees are welcome to spread their branches, and take over.
I sit on an old box,
light cigarettes,
and let the sun nourish the plant within me.
I like this place,
because I'm not responsible for anything
except the plant within me.
People like to think of themselves as work in progress,
Canvas with much white to spare.
But where is the art in assuming this?
I don't know what I am.
I don't think I've ever known.
I'm so tired of piecing together moments of my life,
understanding myself one quilted memory at a time.
Don't tell me you're fun.
Don't tell me anything,
We spend so much time explaining ourselves,
there's hardly enough time in the day to actually live.
And that's what I do when I sit here,
I answer to no one,
I feel no remorse,
I pay no attention,
I just live.

Treat?

Good boy,
sitting right where I left you,
tattooing your skin with hopeless pictures
they speak, only to you.
Especially when you're lonely,
when I don't pick up the phone.
You can explain away everything,
that's your gift,
to kill,
kill,
kill
anyone that says otherwise.
But with me,
you fold,
with a listless poker face,
and your love is an obvious give away,
that you've not forgotten
a damn thing about me.
You fall asleep with my smile,
pinned to your eyelids.
You can explain away anything,
except me.
Good boy,
stay.

Ayita

I like my skin best when it's dark.
I feel so in touch with the best parts of my DNA.
The parts that make up the savage in me,
the stubborn parts of me,
passed on by years of begrudged compliance.
I don't like the white skin of mine,
it looks too weak, too normal, too sheltered.
I am none of those things,
I am a beautiful woman,
but I have struggled.
I like people to know that I am an indian healer.
I like to mystify people with facts about the earths medicine.
I like to lay upon legs, and heal the crippled,
for I, myself have been crippled.
And know what it means to live trapped within yourself.
I tell stories,
about moments I've lived.
I write poetry about the insides of my brain,
I am an honest woman,
which comes from the indian in me,
certainly not the white.
When you pick your breads,
You have been told that the white bread holds no nutritional value.
You, instead reach for the multigrain, or the wheat.
Why embrace the parts of you, that are no good for you?
In the womb,
My grandmother, with her long fingers,
placed her hand upon my mothers belly.
She was an indian healer, and she needed to give me a name.
She called me "Eyita" which means "first to dance."
How did she know that I would spend my life dancing?
Above all things, how did she know, I would be the first to break the ice?
That's my personality in a nutshell,
never afraid to be the first to dance.
And even though I admire my birth name,
being "Olivia" or a "peace maker" seems so unrealistic at times.
Some days I spend living as Olivia,
I cook, I clean, I speak softly, I make peace.
But the days I spend as Eyita, I feel most alive.
The nights I am onstage, glowing.
That isn't Olivia, that is Eyita.
The nights I feel too much, burdened by the evil in this town,
That is Olivia.
And though I seem strong as Olivia,
I am a lesser version of who I would truly, and always love to be.
I am an indian woman.
I am not white.
I am Eyita.