The Curbside Prophet

This is the seventh night in a row

I have stayed awake

till the sun comes up.

My eyes are bleary.

I can’t see.

I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t drink, I can’t write.

All I need to do is fucking write.

.

But the words are trapped, somewhere inside of me

they are stuck, 

held back by some great glooming mass

and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it,

but I know

if it doesn’t go away

I am fucked.

.

All I’ve ever done in my entire life is write

I started writing when I was a kid 

and I just wrote and wrote and wrote

and words just flew out of me

they poured

like the lifeblood of my existence

they just

blossomed

on the page on the screen in my journal 

on the napkins at the bar where I worked

long hours.

.

And then they stopped.

.

And I know why they stopped, 

but I can’t get them back

and I don’t know where they went

or how to find them again,

but every single time I try

I get stuck.

.

And I know.

I know the problem

I know the work that goes into

outlining and drafting and writing and typing

and erasing and tearing your hair out

and 

“this is shit. why am i doing this to myself again.”

and 

“how the fuck do you think you’re going to write a decent anything?!

you can’t even make

a sentence.”

.

I have those voices in my head that tell me

I’m not worth shit

That I can’t do a damn thing

and you know what?

I am proving them right

every hour of every day

that I sit there

hour after hour after hour

till my eyes are bleary

and I can’t see cause of tears

and I can’t eat and i can’t drink and i can’t sleep

and I can’t write.

hour after hour,

day after day.

.

That is what depression

feels like.

an ode to stretch marks (and other alien life forms)

Written by Katherine L., read by lyssamae

like rivers running down the

banks of my breasts

the intimate corners of my thighs

like the zebra’s stripes I so

ardently admired in my youth

each one signifying one more

moment one more breath one more

evidence of puberty’s biting wit

in making me a Woman before I ever

saw one in myself

(before others saw within

me the Woman I would

grow to be)

which leads me to my current incarnation

these rivers carved within my tissue

run deep and ragged and long,

some faint streams others oceans in themselves

each one ushering in a new me

as I learned what a Woman was

Supposed to be—

quiet demure a thing of beauty

an Object to cherish while it retains its luster

oiled and

plucked and

inherently somehow bettered

no longer a body but a showcase

a trophy for its owner and her owner—and a

woman is nothing but an

advertisement for some skin care line

minivan shopping mall plastic surgeon

white bread peanut butter

all-american

lifestyle

what they sell you in a woman is a lifestyle

values traits and physicality hand

picked for your enjoyment

never challenging you

sharpening you

only agreeing with you

until you lose your essence too

that’s what they sell you in a woman—

which leads me to my current incarnation

these rivers carved within my tissue

carve within my heart a new

yearning a new

lust for learning

a new

way of life to combat that

which seeks to make

my sex into profit

my sex into a commodity

bought and sold for pennies

those who seek to tell me

my stretch marks

aren’t a think of beauty

they are in fact a problem

here, you poor young thing

here, let me fix that for you

and fifteen serums

seven diets

four permanents

two layers of nail lacquer

and one eternity later

I am no longer a Woman

only a Doll

some window display for the

faint of heart whose conditioning means they

cannot understand or

maybe just cannot handle

what it means to love

a Woman and I

I am all 

Woman

in this body I breathe deeply

I feel deeply

I am, deeply

passionately, unequivocally, unrestrainedly, unabashedly

Woman

I am

without apology or philosophy or

theology or prophecy defining me,

without chronology or history or

any other -ology interrupting the flow of 

me, a girl of nearly eighteen

darked eyed and beautiful in all my

stretched and marked

glory, in all my purple-red

magnificence

purple is the color of royalty, you know

and I am the Queen of

my soul and my body—

heart and flesh and sinew—

ever follicle freckle scar

every cell

and its infinite capacity for

warmth richness vibrancy

all twisted into a cacophonous symphony

of all that comprises the

Woman

in me.

Written by the wonderful and talented Katherine L. (acting-appalled)!! (via stophatingyourbody)

(Edited for accuracy!)

With No Immediate Cause- Ntozake Shange

[[TW: RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT]]

every 3 minutes a woman is beaten

every five minutes a

woman is raped/every ten minutes

a little girl is molested

yet I rode the subway today

I sat next to an old man who

may have beaten his old wife

3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago

he might have sodomized his daughter

but I sat there

cuz the men on the train

might beat some young women

later in the day or tomorrow

I might not shut my door fast

enough push hard enough

every 3 minutes it happens

some women’s innocence

rushes to her cheeks/pours from her mouth

like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn

apart/their mouths

menses red split/every

three minutes a shoulder

is jammed through plaster and the oven door/

chairs push thru the rib cage/hot water or

boiling sperm decorate her body

I rode the subway today

and bought a paper from an east Indian man who might

have held his old lady onto

a hot pressing iron/ I didn’t know

maybe he catches little girls in the

parks and rips open their behinds

with steel rods/ I can not decide

what he might have done I

know every 3 minutes

every 5 minutes every 10 minutes

I boughtt the paper

looking for the announcement

there has to be an announcement

of the women’s bodies fond

yesterday the missing little girl

I sat in a restaurant with my

paper looking for the announcement

a young man served me coffee

I wondered did he pour the boiling

coffee on the woman because she was stupid

did he put the infant girl in

the coffee pot because she cried too much

what exactly did he do with hot coffee

I looked for the announcement

the discover of the dismembered

woman’s body

victims have not all been

identified today they are

naked and dead/some refuse to

testify girl out of 10 is not

coherent/ I took the coffee

and spit it up I found an

announcement/ not the woman’s

bloated body in the river floating

not the child bleeding in the

59^th street corridor/ not the baby

broken on the floor/

“there is some concern

that alleged battered women

might start to murder their

husbands and lovers with no

immediate cause”

I spit up I vomit I am screaming

we all have immediate cause

every 3 minutes

every 5 minutes

every 10 minutes

every day

women’s bodies are found

in alleys and bedrooms/at the top of the stairs

before I ride the subway/buy a paper of drink

coffee from your hands I must know

have you hurt a woman today

did you beat a woman today

throw a child cross a room

are the little girl’s pants in your pocket

did you hurt a woman today

I have to ask these obscene questions

I must know you see

the authorities require us to

establish

immediate cause

every three minutes

every five minutes

every ten minutes

every day