...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
So
on the island that sent me to America
my pen waxes fluid again
amidst walls of blue and orange
and stars on the ceiling
and the pots you hate
women who cook
feel more deeply than fern gully
sweet potato
and the meat most people think is bad for me
my eyes hurt
from the unfamiliar
the mosqitoes
the moths blinking certain in the night light turned against phobias
religions not quite understood
Cubans everywhere
the caramel layer increases
on this island
foreigners are so valuable here
small hints of American accents
and clothes with big letters spalyed open on our chest
heavy
the truth can be so heavy when you have to carry it on your chest.
motherfucker can't eat with all that truth
knocking gunshots outside your door
grill-lock the traffic-jam up the dance-hall and pull-up Mr. Selector!
This music does not speak for me
Jamaican woman
lesbian is only a small part of how I love
I am my grandmother's broken dentures
her ears do not work so well
in these last days
visitors are welcome
walk good mi chile
and don't let them tell you how to walk
when you walk- you just walk the way you was always walking
hold you head up high
hang your basket where you hand can reach it
reach for more than you think you need
old woman
with water in her eyes
when she thinks of me and snow and the whiteman
and his country
But I am safe
Grandma
I give them fuckers all kinds of hell
hallelujah
in the belly of my homeground
I am grounded
home is the loud clash of sound
sliding into silence
Silent is how I love this one
nobody knows
not even me
most days I tell myself I am dreaming
some days living is harder than peeling the transparent skin
from my flesh unremembering
I am Montego Bay
growing in leaps and bounding into this future of books to write
and shows to recover from
good friends are like pork chops
made well
you forgive what they say of cholesteral
and what the heart can take
and you just consume
more than you should
but it feels so
good
boys and beds and the sheer pleasure of how different things are now
girls
and water
and windows to fall into
what the breeze will do to you here
defies explanation
in Love and moods that giggle towards healing,
Staceyann
I am in Jamaica. Been here for days now. The warm. The patch of burnt skin.
Funny how skin forgets
it once lived under this hot torment. This war
of wine
inside of wit and stories of cousins and sisters and broken words
whispered
from inside of me and you
and all we ever wanted was to write
to tell stories
of windows and being lost and cold water
and jazz
and she is coming to me
in just a few days
and her mother
although my mother is crazy
most days
I am crazy
writing
careful
not really writing important stuff
I should write
more stuff
stuff myself with words
and this gel which oozes from me
nightly
washes and daily talkbacks
respond to me
all I ever wanted was you
listening
Rhone and Forbes and Lewis
and Ellington
I grew up with your voices
how they made words sound like gold
pocketed between
faces with Histories
and futures
all I ever wanted was to write
and maybe a girl to paint
between the lines
nothing too hard in her expensive brushes
just a bunch of cool colors
shading me towards
self
discovery is why I pull my body from slumber
at six
each morning I open my petals
at dawn
wherever I am
I have learned to miss
the smell of you
sharp
and always a lover hovers
crisp in the wit of me pretending
you always know when I am coated
lick me
dissolve me
perhaps
something of me will chip
something of us
all I ever wanted was to write
you love letters
painted in sea green
and monkey-yellow-banana-peel
all I ever wanted was
to write
my grandmother
and these mountains framing
the beggars
the children smarter
than death
and men with swift kind hands
and women who raise other women's children
and the words tumbling star-apple bursting on flat kitchen floor
words constructed
ladder
like houses in Portmore
small compartments
pressed too tight under the arm of a New highway
making way for a new journey from
Montego Bay to me
Kingston
all the way to how we use the love of women from Portland
to Clarendon
clean clothes for women like me
water-logged fingers for women
like none of you know
except when you make it here
for spring-break
they keep those white sheets white
the tiny squares of mango
the sterile surface of your smiles
exotic aren't we
not me
I escaped
the reality but the dreams come
every time I come home
the dark hands are too much on those
not-quite-white-vanilla babies
who cry for the help
more readily
than I
Home is where
the heart hurts most-------
from the belly of my motherland,
Staceyann