Staceyann Chin

Resolved...

...to be myself. No matter
how sharp the ridges of feeling jut out

to climb that rock of will holding steadfast over
desire

and pleasing myself is all I want to be responsible for

these days go faster
as these years

bloom a steadier hand
a softer outline of me

getting blurred
and beautiful under such unforgiving light

the visit home was no cure-all
but it agitated stagnant wounds toward

changing
and change is more certain than death

in these times of living forever
all I can do is laugh

mouth bleeding the plasma of survival
and confidence

now
I remember why I did not cut my wrist
or throat
or cranium
before

dying seems easier than the task of growing

older is harder than now

love me

the changing face
the stretching

the marking of body and gait

Mandela
inhaled all throughout
the years of mealie pap
and indignities

I revv my engines in the direction of a struggle
without glory
or loud nobility

sometimes life is about french toast with J
and sue
and Kira

sometimes coming home isn't about her
or even the silence

of me evaluating
how far I have come

how much further
I do not want to go

sometimes an apartment in Brooklyn
is about smiling with water in my mouth

warm fluid
daring the journey
from lip
to chin to jugular

I have not looked in any mirror
today

but I feel striking

pretty in my orange bandana
and green panties

red socks have a way of making me feel sexy

and the world is my ecosystem
and I am at rest

beauty is the way I breathe
today
nothing exists but the flutter in my own heart

my own lungs
sustain me

feather-like and crazy floating
my feet are barely on these wooden floors

too much sky
to reach for under these brutal memories

of thunder and electric danger
pushing me this way

that way
had no notion of why I was what

but today
I am a grain of sand
nestled in the hope of this flesh filled shell

already
I can feel me

glistening

peace and pearls in the making,
Staceyann

Posted by staceyann at April 18, 2004 09:47 PM