FISSURES

  Write, push, pull. Move, talk, run.

Tell everyone Of the tragedy that is you.

"You've got to tell that story," he says.

It appears to be a command from on high, but even God Almighty himself couldn't expect one person to unravel, document, take ownership of This woman's history

This woman's work

This woman's pain

The stains on my skirt

The wounds on my feet

The holes in my hands

The stressors that reside in my brain

The pieces of me that have been beaten, fractured, dismembered, discarded

Scattered Smothered Spit upon

then put back together again haphazardly

It would take a lifetime

A million binders of poems, prose and lists.

A thousand scribes in the style of Allison, Komunyakaa, Danticat, Burke & Walker.

Dancing daughters Water bearers, River walkers, Flamenco fingers, Square dancers and Salsa hips

Drumming sons Djembe, Nyabinghi, Bongos, English Collins, straight up all-day Zeppelin

And the patience of Job

To even begin to spell out the making of me

With weeping eyes

An aching gut

A bursting heart

Weighted shoulders

And a slew of tired sighs

I tell him

Keep digging and you'll excavate that which you will wish you had left buried

There is a reason why Women suffer in silence

Our truths have the capacity to create fissures in the earth