Thrilled to appear in Scryptic Magazine 1.4 with 2 haibun!
Homeward Bound
I overhear the character on my daughters cartoon show ask, “Do you know what’s in the box”? Well, do you know? It’s my broken spirit. My bubbling anger. My frustration over having a perpetually messy house, with no energy to fix it. It’s my fear that these years are slipping by without me soaking in all the precious moments because I’m up to my ears in a desire to run away. It’s my humiliation that this it not enough. It’s the unshakable belief that if I just tried harder these feeling would all go away. It’s the suspicion that I’m not alone. Yet, still, desperately alone.
spent dandelion
no more wishes
left to wish
All in a Day’s Work
I don’t recognize my own vagina. After two children, it’s as if a completely different woman exists between my legs. A woman who was disfigured by wordless strangers who only knew how to claw, tear, and then piss on her. A woman who fears too much touch. A woman who feels pain now when she craves pleasure. A woman who rarely raises her head to say hello and instead mumbles indiscriminately and gives up. A woman who has chronic dry mouth. Beaten and too ashamed to mention her trauma, a woman who has begun to brick herself off from the world in hopes that it never happens again.
Though, writing it out, it seems my vagina and I aren’t actually all that dissimilar.
tending to my garden
a new bud
among the weeds
