Catastrophe Jones

I turn my face
inward to the sun inside me,
an incadescent hatred of the chains
in which our oppressors bind me,
bind us all;

I have decided
to step away from the grim, chilling night
and accept the rage that burns.

I have decided
it will be better to dance in the fire,
rather than drown in the cold and the deep.

This is not the first time
I have been angry.

This is not the first time
I have breathed flame.

It does not matter.

I swear to everything I know
I will burn you to nothing.

You will listen to the sound of your lies
boiling on your own tongue
and your cruelty
blistering your own hands.

And then you will hear no more.

And I will call to the world–

all of us who have been chained,
all of us who dwindled in the dark
all of us who thought we were powerless
hungry for love, for justice

–I will call them, triumphant

and I will tell them:

You, who are hungry …I have made you a feast.

I am this vast ocean and also drowning;
I am this furious blaze and also burning;
I am She Who Must Be Fed and also I consume myself in my hunger;
nothing will sate me–
nothing is enough–
nothing fills, fulfills, fuels, fixes, finishes
nothing is enough–

nothing is enough–

(look again)

nothing is enough

This blasted landscape of my life has left me
longing not for death but simply ending
for longer than I can remember. I have wished
just to stop for what is longer
than my daughter’s whole life,
and she has been an adult for years.

I cannot escape while there are lives
that love mine.
Forgiveness is a thing I have asked for
too many times.

How right can it be
what kind of god is merciful
to make me live for so long–

to have me raise the dogs that pull the sled
while this black one rests on me
its massive paws on my shoulders
unending in its pressure

–when I would rather curl under the earth,
pull the dirt over me
and lay it down against me
like a perfect blanket,
to swallow me
(its scent on my tongue, and mine on its)
and let me become
something unconcerned with beauty,
happy with the end of survival.

There is a genuine wish in the drowning heart
to give up the fight.
It wars with the silent squalling hope that is
the need to survive.

The ambient white noise of her head is fading,
letting in the outside world,
and it is a painful thing, to drown here, to let yourself be overwhelmed
by all its noise
and messy dissatisfaction.

You can’t escape,
if you are in the here and now, and for some of us,
you might as well be drowning;
you’ve never learned to swim in something like this.