Milk and Honey (2 page)

a daughter should
not have to
beg her father
for a relationship

trying to convince myself
i am allowed
to take up space
is like writing with
my left hand
when i was born
to use my right

- the idea of shrinking is hereditary

you tell me to quiet down cause
my opinions make me less beautiful
but i was not made with a fire in my belly
so i could be put out
i was not made with a lightness on my tongue
so i could be easy to swallow
i was made heavy
half blade and half silk
difficult to forget and not easy
for the mind to follow

he guts her
with his fingers
like he’s scraping
the inside of a
cantaloupe clean

your mother
is in the habit of
offering more love
than you can carry
your father is absent
you are a war
the border between two countries
the collateral damage
the paradox that joins the two
but also splits them apart

emptying out of my mother’s belly
was my first act of disappearance
learning to shrink for a family
who likes their daughters invisible
was the second
the art of being empty
is simple
believe them when they say
you are nothing
repeat it to yourself
like a wish
i am nothing
i am nothing
i am nothing
so often
the only reason you know
you’re still alive is from the
heaving of your chest

- the art of being empty

you look just like your mother
             i guess i do carry her tenderness well
you both have the same eyes
             cause we are both exhausted
and the hands
             we share the same wilting fingers
but that rage your mother doesn’t wear that anger
             you’re right
             this rage is the one thing
             i get from my father

(homage to warsan shire’s
inheritance
)

when my mother opens her mouth
to have a conversation at dinner
my father shoves the word hush
between her lips and tells her to
never speak with her mouth full
this is how the women in my family
learned to live with their mouths closed

our knees
pried open
by cousins
and uncles
and men
our bodies touched
by all the wrong people
that even in a bed full of safety
we are afraid

father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you
ask what i’m doing or where i am and when the silence
stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find
questions to keep the conversation going. what i long to
say most is. i understand this world broke you. it has been
so hard on your feet. i don’t blame you for not knowing
how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up thinking
of all the places you are hurting which you’ll never care
to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the
same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on
myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the
only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it
is the only way i know how to tell you.

you plough into me with two fingers and i am mostly
shocked. it feels like rubber against an open wound.
i do not like it. you begin pushing faster and faster. but i
feel nothing. you search my face for a reaction so i begin
acting like the naked women in the videos you watch when
you think no one’s looking. i imitate their moans. hollow
and hungry. you ask if it feels good and i say
yes
so quickly it sounds rehearsed. but the acting.
you do not notice.

i can’t tell if my mother is
terrified or in love with
my father it all
looks the same

i flinch when you touch me
i fear it is him

when my mother was pregnant
with her second child i was four
i pointed at her swollen belly confused at how
my mother had gotten so big in such little time
my father scooped me in his tree trunk arms and
said the closest thing to god on this earth
is a woman’s body it’s where life comes from
and to have a grown man tell me something
so powerful at such a young age
changed me to see the entire universe
rested at my mother’s feet

i struggle so deeply
to understand
how someone can
pour their entire soul
blood and energy
into someone
without wanting
anything in
return

- i will have to wait till i’m a mother

no
it won’t
be love at
first sight when
we meet it’ll be love
at first remembrance cause
i’ve seen you in my mother’s eyes
when she tells me to marry the type
of man i’d want to raise my son to be like