Twice- Little Dragon

Hey y’all, I hope people are enjoying a day off, if you have one. Because we KNOW capitalism sucks. I’ve been trying to go back through my phone and finish or rewrite some old prompts and unfinished pieces. I want to be the kind of poet that finishes what she starts and titles her work and so on but that’s not possible right now, well as far as titles go. I’ve been trying to finish what I start since I realized a flake on a lot of things (self realization/self drag). But I feel great about seeing my projects through so far. Hopefully I become that person all the time. So I have two pieces for y’all, one I’ve already finished and one I want to work on continuously. The one that’s finished has no title.

I am afraid /I wish I said that the last time/ I wish I knew that the first time /You showed me your demons and I gave them a place to rest their heads /I have not found rest yet. When you wrestled your love on me /You forgot to warn me that I would break / Limbs tripping off of the slippery slope where we’re friends but my thigh and your hand are a little too close /You forgot to warn me that if I loved you/ I’d be a devastated soul capable of making a home but I’m incapable of being livable for 1,000 more years /You forgot to remind me you were nuclear. I am sorry. That I trusted you to shield me when you showed me you were a leaky roof that caved in on me /That I would do anything for the emotionless blades you threw my way/As I lay motionless /But even my docility couldn’t make you stay/ I’m sorry I cling to dead things /I’m sorry I cling to you instead of my own ways/ I’m sorry I didn’t love myself enough for you to love me too /I’m sorry I was too delicate for your love /Jagged, panicked, like my dreams now /A new dawn /A new day/ I’m free /Now/ But at what cost?

Capitalism makes me sick

My job keeps me from mediating.

My job keeps me from asking my mom for her money for the week.

My job doesn’t let me wake up with the sun.

I usually have to ring the suns alarm when it mumbles and turns over.

My job gives me somewhere to go during the day.

Kind of like an adult day care, where they binge on coffee and consider having Liquid lunches.

My job closes their eyes when I take a longer lunch to sleep or shop because I am sad.

Or tired. Or tired of being sad that I couldn’t just take the day off to cry at home.

My job keeps my boss from caring for herself.
She is, balancing between her desk and a calendar that is always full.

She had a heart attack and apologized.

She comes back and refuses to eat lunch until 6pm.

She stresses until she leaves for the night.

Do you think the job will wait for her?

Do you think the job appreciates the way she lets herself waste and wither?

She tells me she was a temp for two years.

She tells me to wait my turn.

She tells me she’ll get to offering me a contract. Not if the job has anything to kill her over.

Not if the calendar takes her lunch in between meetings.

Not if the job doesn’t let her take care of herself. We are crumbling women, worried about the same health, on the edges of the job

And it’s reign.

And it rains. Until I get paid.

Then I am baby with half shut lids pacified. Until the bills say it’s payday.

I sneak in a mediation and time to wink at the sun. I pray I live to see capitalism die.

Capitalism puts knots in my back like ornaments on a tree.

I’ve been working since before they clocked my social security…

thanks y’all