This is for my sisters
whose hearts break open with each new dawn.
For those who feel
their pulse so desperate in their temples
for beating hearts
bruising tremulous veins
for those wearing skin
like suits of armor:
gladiators passing as sister,
mother, daughter, friend,
our breasts and waistlines
labeled with adjectives not seen in anatomy textbooks
our hearts and brains
left unnameable, undiscovered,
we become more than the
sum of our pieces
as some of our parts scream
to be known as alive.
Alive.
This is for my sisters
who pray in the Temple of Disbelief.
For those who worship in
the Temple of Disaster, of Shame,
who pray to the goddess
of Just-One-More-Day,
who try to find one thing worth believing in,
this is for my sisters
who can't find how to
live life in the skin they were born,
who kneel at the altar
purging their life-force
to uncover their hidden essence
their hearts too full
of life to recognize what they
are dying for.
This is for my sisters who
play Russian roulette with their bodies
believe they'll never
die since they're the ones with the gun
outsmarting triggers
counting each tick on
the adrenaline scale
rocking out to the
sound of heart on bone or heart on skin:
it's the game we play,
praying to the god of perfectionistic sin
hoping the shroud of
insecurity accentuates our lifelines
and humility compliments
the tone of our skin.
She fires the blanks
without a blink - living can seem so close to death
and Control is the name
Fear gives her lover
before the silence shatters.
We've all stepped on
sidewalk cracks or over lucky pennies
on the days we weren't
looking
we've pushed beauty
from our stomachs
squeezed it from our
scars
we leave behind a
hologram of who we could have been
mashed into a 3-D
mirage of what we try to be
massage our temples to rub out our
dreams
conjure the genie from
the magic lamp of our mind, praying:
Love me.
Fear me.
Need me.
Beautiful.
Alive.
