Invisible

I grew up in invisible poverty

Not in a city housing project, but surrounded by trees- keepers of my sanity

Unfortunately, I didn’t cling tight to that original green

I left the nature that uplifted me to get swallowed by the big city

I did hard time in the belly of that proverbial whale

I was a natural at drinking at bars and hitching rides from strangers in cars

I ran as fast as I could in the workaholic race without stopping to realize that I was headed away from that which my heart truly desired- tranquility and peace

I recreated the high stress of my childhood without seeing my own role in the process

Perhaps the cycle of trauma is not fully broken, yet I am breaking free

The chains that bind me are invisible, yet I feel them loosen and weaken

I get stronger every day

Good

I no longer strive to be labeled as ‘good’ by others

Like a trained fucking dog

I don’t want to act sweet

When I feel salty and bitter

I never wanted to fit into a box

Or stay between the lines

I don’t even belong indoors

I am a wild, free woman

If that means I’m not the angel you thought I was

Then light up the fire and brimstone

Too long have I carried the burden of trying to save the world while looking cute and put-together

Always satisfying other’s needs like plugging holes in a dam and I’m about to burst

I tremble and ache to let go of the many ropes which bind me

So many roles to play and expectations to meet

No wonder I have no time or energy left for me

I am the only person I can save, and my liberation doesn’t require fake smiles or insincere social pleasantries

To live my best life

I must aspire to be more than simply good

I must liberate myself from the ribbon I am wrapped up in

Rip off the docile doll’s dress and burn it,

Warming my hands and illuminating my night

I must feel my body and ride the waves of my emotions with shuddering ecstasy

You want me to be good

But I want to be better

Take it Back

I feel the knots you’ve tied within me

Stains on my energy

Pains in my body

I observe the damage

Tension, nausea, sensation of suffocation

Insomnia, dizziness, diarrheal defecation

You made me feel powerless for too damn long

You beat me up but my spirit is strong

This shit isn’t mine

This was never mine

This is yours

Take it back

Take it all the fuck back

The trauma and the drama

The hurt and the dirt

Keep your hands and your mind out of my skirt

Don’t tell me what to do

Your mind games were never fun for me

Were they fun for you?

You can win the prize, I offer it freely to you

I won’t play anymore

Your ego will have to deal with the fact that I’m letting my sanity heal

I’m learning to put myself first

Through radical acts of self care to restore my happiness and health

Your energy is yours

Take it back

Death Certificate

Another day, another death by COVID.

My COVID patient who died today was relatively healthy and young.

While filling out his death certificate, I paused over the ’cause of death’ section:

 

My patient had multi-organ failure with a subsequent cardiac arrhythmia incompatible with life and viral pneumonia causing respiratory failure, however the failure that lead up to his COVID infection was systemic at a societal level.

 

My patient was a prisoner, infected by COVID-19 because he was denied the ability to socially distance, robbed of the right the protect himself.

 

I didn’t know him, but as I studied his body during his final hours I imagined what his life had been like, and wanted to include on his death certificate:

 

Cause of death:

Complications resulting from loss of human rights due to imprisonment

Secondary to the prison-industrial complex

Secondary to class warfare

Secondary to poverty

Secondary to racism

 

I didn’t know him, but I shared pieces of his struggle:

Adverse childhood experiences, trauma on trauma on trauma

 

His premature death is another stone in my pocket

My path is liberation

Wherever his soul is now, I hope he feels liberated too

Liberated from the brown skin which lead to his incarceration which inevitably did him in.

Samurai

Before I knew how to love,

I freely offered up my heart

Blind shot in the dark

I was the one who dropped my heart on the floor

From my open hands

Not knowing that I had smashed through a door

Not knowing what I would gain

Not knowing what I could never lose

No one seemed to notice, no one intervened

As I set out on my own

Lifting the veil, stepping through the screen

It wasn’t easy

I made every possible mistake

Burning my fire to fulfill other people’s desires

I was able to do everything and anything,

Because I already felt dead

From the heartbreak which split and throbbed in my head

I flipped circus tricks in the strangest of beds

Unscripted, I drifted

I met so many people

I worshipped under unconventional steeples

Life is my book, my science, my art

It all started when I sacrificed my heart

Everyday I learn how to love more

Love myself, my life, my family

Love even the dregs of humanity

Those who have yet to wander away from themselves

Those who have yet to realize who they really are

Because they cling so tightly to their identity

I’m privileged to live like a Samurai; at once warrior, servant, and free

Courtroom

In one version of my personal hell,
I am on trial
For the many hearts which men claim that I’ve broken
The courtroom is filled with shouting, controlling, angry men

‘But I gave you my body!’ My voice is only audible to myself amidst the raucous.
Who can say that my body was not a fair trade?
I feel that I over-paid, but none of the men ever asked me how I feel.

The men start to turn on each other, because they are each jealous of the others for having had my body- a body they felt belonged only to them
Undeserving jerks

They each find plenty of reasons to despise each other, comparing muscles, testicles and penises

Amidst the fury, I sneak out the back, silently shutting the door
Leaving them condemned to their misery

Outside the courtroom, the world is peaceful, beautiful, blissful-
Birds are singing, the sun is shining as it paints a rainbow across the sky
Each insect and blade of grass adds its music to the symphony
The trumpeting flowers and heralding trees
All celebrate with me
I am free at last

What the men failed to realize is that not only do I not owe them my body- or anything else for that matter-

My body is not even mine to own-
We will part one day, this sacred physical vehicle and I-
When my journey in this lifetime is complete
After many healthy and happy years
Which have only just begun

Practicing Presence

I have good reason
To feel over-worked and under-paid
Burnt out, with a need to get laid
But good loving is hard to come by

I also have many reasons
To feel hopeful, joyful, grateful
Even satisfied

I’m not gonna lie
I’ve got a flame of desire between my thighs
That you light up with your eyes

Every time I see you, I re-realize
That life is only right here, right now
All we ever have is the present
For the divine gift of your presence, I thank you

Who could ever win the tug-of-war
Between past regrets and future worries?

It is hard to shake off the trauma that clings to me
I try to slip under it, but trauma’s tentacles are tenacious and latch onto me
But I know a secret trick
Without my ego, trauma has nothing to latch onto
I have acquired immunity
I shrink my ego enough to escape trauma’s grasp, float downstream and buoyantly resurface, safely out of reach

When I return from my latest circumnavigation of space-time
And redirect my awareness back to
where I am in this moment
what is happening in this moment
how I feel in this moment
I feel victorious!

Practicing presence is the only way
To be happy, healthy, and free

I wish such peace to thee

Absinthe and Abstinence

Instead of drinking absinthe

I wish I’d practiced abstinence

Absinthe passed through my lips

You followed suit, more than just the tip

I was butter and you were the knife

Wish I could take back that night

Spread out like jam on toast

On a Manhattan mattress, we did the most

It got so hot, we were the roast

But I was the one who got burned

Absinthe, you brought on sweat, blood and tears

Abstinence, you would have spared me much fear

Absinthe, why’d you help me undress?

Abstinence, you would have prevented stress

Absinthe, you never delivered that green fairy

Abstinence, your fruit is sweeter than the ripest berry

Absinthe, under your tutelage I’ve grown wary

Now I practice abstinence

From every Tom, Dick and Harry

and all the other men who didn’t have my best interest at heart-

You protested loudly when I told you we had to part.

You don’t have to understand

You just have to know that you’re not my man.

Bra-less and Lawless

 

Bra-less and lawless
That’s what I am
I solved the problem of my poverty creatively
That’s code-speak for ‘illegally’

Because prostitution
Isn’t recognized by the institution
Ironically, it’s the same men who rule the world
Who pay money to have sex with girls

I’ve jerked off CEOs of international companies
Wildly successful ones that you might support everyday
In our inevitable, consumeristic way                                                                                           Like common street pimps, the government and corporate thugs take the money they want, leaving the rest of us just enough to stay alive so that we keep making them rich off our blood, sweat and tears all the years of our lives                                                           We break our backs while their bank accounts grow fat collecting tax

Sometimes I break the law                                                                                                        When I was a sex-worker, I limboed around the law by making a living without paying taxes on my wages, unless you count the immeasurable tax of physical and psychological trauma, which like a war within me rages

Sex work was an avenue to do what I could to improve my reality
With a heart of gold: I did it without hurting others, young or old
I even donated some of my hard-won earnings to charity
Robin Hood is a hero to me

Sometimes I let it all hang out and go bra-less
I am a woman in a man’s world (though we’re fighting for our human rights!)
Taking my bra off feels like exhaling, ‘Yes I am!’

Letting my breasts fall forward to where they naturally lay
Feels like the first time I did sex work and got paid
I could finally afford to buy food instead of scavenging through the trash,                         no more would I dine on the stale leftovers of rats
All I had to do was survive an hour behind closed doors with an asshole rapist                   it was like any other day, except that I got paid a livable wage

Poverty feels like an uncomfortable bra
That is two sizes too small
It cuts into you and suffocates you
Until there is only one thing left to do, if you can
Break free

I’m not saying that everyone with financial difficulty should find employment through illegal activity, although that seems to be the only option at times
I’m saying that feeling comfortable
In your body, your mind and your life
Is something worth striving for
I hope you feel comfortable in some way every day

Freeing myself from poverty was not quick or easy,                                                      Although the lucrativeness of sex work at first made me believe it would be.      Sustainable change takes time                                                                                                         In the long run, it took a lot of hard, unpaid effort educating myself to reach a place of true comfort; for austere years I lived without many things I wanted because most of all, I wanted to be free                                                                                                                                I wouldn’t change my journey for anything                                                                                    I am grateful for all that I learned, the profound ways that I healed spiritually and am healing still, the people I met, the goals I accomplished, the places I’ve lived and…

how good it feels to finally come home to myself, to my heart and my body                     The journey isn’t over, but I know that whatever the future brings, I am ready

…and for the moment, bra-less

Little Prayer

I humbly offer a little prayer
For the little life
That grew inside me for a while
They were due to be born yesterday

I think it was a girl
I will never know for sure
Not knowing is part of the price I pay for ending the pregnancy
How I would have loved to love her

Unbeknownst to me at the time of conception, her daddy was not fit to raise a baby with
Nine weeks later, he made it apparent that I needed to have nothing to do with him        In order to protect my own wellbeing

At the same time, I lacked the socioeconomic resources
to have the baby without him
So I gave her up, though I struggled to pay for the abortion

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Planned Parenthood, the Women’s Action Fund, and the many strong, generous advocates of women’s rights around the world. Thank you.

To the ignorant people and policies that get in the way of women accessing the health care they need, to those who do harm by being obnoxious obstacles to women’s rights, and to the health insurance companies that don’t cover jack shit of abortive care, I would like to express a sincere ‘Fuck You’.

Ending my pregnancy was a tough choice
But I’m glad I made it
It was the best decision for me
I am happier, healthier and freer now because of it

Still, in my mind’s eye I see her sweet eyes
Whisper in her little ears, caress her soft curls
Hold her little fingers and the tiniest of toes
In my imagination, I kiss her cheeks and her nose
I hear her laughter and her cries
I delight in the chubby rolls of her baby thighs

I hope you understand, little life
That your mama did the best she could
With what she had at the time

I bow in deep respect to you
With compassion and gratitude
Beaming always peace and love to you

From the spiritual realm, little life, I’m sure you can see clearly how                                                  Pro-choice is pro-life; pro-women’s lives                                                                          Women’s lives matter                                                                                                                       My abortion allowed me to give birth to my own life                                                                   I am so fortunate to live the life that I want                                                                                 To make decisions about my body                                                                                                  To be free

I pray that all women may know this freedom                                                                             If I had kept the pregnancy and given birth yesterday, I would have raised my child to value and fight for her freedom of choice                                                                                            So that if she got pregnant she could choose to do what is best for herself