Written 10/12/23
why would you make me choose?
can’t you see me in my entirety, isn’t there space for daylight beyond the box?
Today is the equinox, and I’m thinking again about duality
about boundaries, liminal spaces.
ever since I was young, writing these poems that seared and sliced,
I felt my own edges to be somewhere in the wilderness.
If I told you I was queer, would you question why I’m here?
[this university, this church, of all places]
I want to hold the unwilling gaze
in the palm of my hand
to force attention, demand your reckoning—
Allow me the privilege of deciding what spaces I occupy.
I try not to speak gently, try to write full-throated poems that scream
insistent, unapologetic. I have never been as honest.
I don’t want to be beautiful to you, I want to be blunt.
I want my presence to be a reminder of the liminal space.
write me a poem about halfways, borderlands,
I’ll live in the gray if your blank stares can’t place me on the map
unrepentant, I’ll write a poem that cuts
say the words that chafe and itch
somewhere in the wilderness, that poem I wrote when I was young
but felt old: something about the magnetic pull, the dark, the edge.
let me be louder than your horizons, angrier than your apologies.
to step across the border is to acknowledge it.
unafraid, let me transcend the lines we draw, occupy whole
landscapes with my selfhood—
let’s hammer out a space in the borderlands, let the liminal,
the waiting, the undefined,
be an embrace for the parts of us that prickle and wonder. I know you’ve felt it too.
I want to be blunt: I don’t need your permission.
this poem is as much an affirmation as it is a requiem,
a wake for the apologetic in me, the girl that sought a homeland within
borders that never fit. Bury the directionless,
say goodbye to the girl that was easier for you to digest.
I won’t apologize for the wilderness I am, the galaxies I encompass.
Requiem: Noun. A Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead; a musical composition setting parts of a requiem Mass; an act or token of remembrance.
Repentant: Adjective. Expressing or feeling sincere regret and remorse; remorseful.
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