writer, storyteller, veteran (see MaxieJaneFrazier.com for more)
Is safety an emotion?
What is a life lived
Peering out from shelter?
From a position of stasis?
Once the bogey man
Pushed me over a cliff.
In the freefall moment,
Buoyed only by air,
The worst came true.
I didn’t die on the rocks,
Rushing up to me as if
I was the one who was
Holding still.
The enormous pain
Sheared open my heart.
The shoreline presented a
Sheer wall and
I climbed the cliff again.
How do I know what a poem should be?
Poems are secrets opened with
Careful, surgeon’s fingers,
Revealing the beating heart beneath.
Poems point a finger at me,
And at you,
Truths peeling back our armor.
Poems slips knives between
Our ribs,
Sharp with life-threatening pain.
Poems are prescriptions,
Lenses opening our eyes,
World suddenly new.
XCI
Some know they are best by birth, some in talent,
Some in their dripping diamonds, some in physical prowess,
Some wear designers although they are bougie spent;
Some in their phones and purses, some in their cars caress;
And every distraction has some representative pleasure,
Joy its owner’s purview:
But these particulars are not my measure,
I eschew all these for only you.
Your laughing eyes and love outrank all riches,
You are my wealth, you dress me in finest adoration
Of more delight than things your love bewitches;
And having you, I relinquish all causation:
One power above all is yours to take
Away your bewitching love, and me most wretched make.
(inspired by Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses,” resurrected for NaPoWriMo prompt)
She wore armor
She wore armor over her beating heart
She wore armor over her pendulous breasts
She wore armor over her curving hips
She wore armor over her mound of flesh.
She wore armor
She wore armor over her good ideas
She wore armor over her strong hands.
She wore armor over her written words
She wore armor over her selfless service
She wore armor.
She wore armor over the cold space in their bed
She wore armor over the spoken wounds
She wore armor over the indifference
She wore armor over the goodbye
She wore armor.
She wore armor when her husband left
She wore armor on the morning metro
She wore armor at her Pentagon desk
She wore armor in her smile.
She wore armor
Her armor shifted under his gaze.
Her armor protested under his hands
Her armor groaned under his kiss
Her armor cracked under his weight
She unfasrened her armor.
