Writing in the throb of the moment each day to share the inner workings of a poetic breakdown. It is a lovely challenge to write from honesty about the multiplicities of a wired mind. This includes the reflections of womanhood, experiences from social encounters, pain from the body, panel discussions with fashion leaders, and inspiration from my favorite musical acts. Take a peek inside. 

Lemonade

Rotation of silver lids

spinning cups, ladles, and kettles on every limb

she is a witch in the kitchen, concocting out of your sins

Trickles ticking, drip dropping

 I smooth my lips over the rim,

just enough to drink in,

what wasn’t given

...but taken

Leafy on the branch, a twitch of sticks

before falling face first into mouth

seeds and all

cooking up the fruit for a seasonal dessert

Squirt, Squeeze,

pleasure seekers

bitter bitches bite and tease

Gnaw at flesh,

the skin of citrus

whose porous rinds clench between jaws aligned

Sour spit

sip and swallow

suckling onto the teet of the fruit

life giver, she took in what she could

an open mouth, eyes roll back to wash it all down

Coming to completion

like the raw fortitude, you both suffered for

plucked from his grip, go get yours

Sweet to the senses 

you filled light right into these lids

It’s lemonade, darling

for you and the fetus

for my nectar runs deep. 

Her

She walks into the room

like she is walking onto her stage

length in limbs that stretch through the ceiling  

a v-neck blazer the color of a soft tongue lays against ochre skin

 “Power is confidence in all that you are”

Her as the Influencer.

 

She is a Sudanese scientist

the daughter of refugees, a millennial born into midnight skin

a silvery picnic dress wraps her in auric light, 

she wants every woman to have a skin tone palette that matches their own shade

imagine a world where every girl is seen from the shelves of a drugstore, 

telling her she belongs, she has purpose, and she is not one color

Her as the beauty industry disruptor. 

 

Silver links studded with Swarovski crystals binds her blonde neck

a face on full display

her bomber jacket, the color of ballet slippers worn with force

she sits on the board with men on either side

philanthropists for Hollywood’s finest forces, 

she is part financial, part business, part presidential with a global heart

Her as CEO. 

 

The image gatherer sitting behind the lens

she captures the circadian portraits of the women who work in Ethiopa and Togo

the women who sweat and sing, the women who are awake

the women who are unseen from our media

Her as the photographer documentarian.

 

Decorative jewels are cuffed around her ears 

defined in gold, secured into a cotton jumpsuit

Mara lifts her chin to the bulbs above

“We should never underestimate putting beauty into the world”

What if sustainable advertorials asked us to invest in her art?

Her as the eco-conscious fashion designer. 

 

The colors of the Female

tell us to champion the women now, for they are waiting

Planet Mother

A drop in the ocean

one against all.

When you are the eye in the storm,

you see everything for what it is, 

a natural disaster may just be the fear felt from within

a tunnel to see the world from above, a perspective that loosens the falsities

you can't see it all without a little destruction.

Tsunamis kick up the truth across a city that doesn’t sleep,

the crack in earth, a torn fault line

is just the awakening for new ideas

c h a n g e

is the only consistent forcefield

bowing down to H E R is the only practice

Restore

Do I need to take three days to sleep? 

to catch up on days spent idling in dissonence.

Deliberately setting aside stimulation

for the internal recovery, 

or maybe that’s the secret to meditation. 

A mantra lies deep in my pillow, 

each night, I listen, 

cuddled up to the idea that there are solutions under the covers. 

The world seems so far away sometimes

it is safe beneath these silk and wool textiles, a blanket fort on the edge of reality. 

Sometimes it feels like the only way to turn this off is to lay down and sleep away the day, 

a date with her daydreams.

I wrestle against illusions behind eyelids, 

sleeping in to swim with lucid thoughts 

manipulation of the subconscious. 

Is it real, am I submitting to a languid retreat,

or am I being covertly accomplished? 

Suffering doesn’t exist unless I create it. 

So how cozy is this bed?

It is exactly what I make of it. 

Omitted

You tell me to sit,

and I sit.

You tell them to tell me, to stand

and I stand on wobbly knees.

You whisper through the digital crack

meeting me with a toss of the hand, reminding me of your lofty position. 

You look me up, down, then look over my crown 

and remove me once again from the conversation. 

You are at the top and I look up from my chair down below. 

You made that ranking clear, you set that bar

I have never felt lower, but I continue to grow. 

Thank you for pushing me away, 

your negligence with my temper

is the reason I search deeper for my inner sage. 

Thank you for looking down,

it is my prowess beneath you that will shine from this same crown. 

Someday,

I pray you see my power before your resources all drown. 

Re-Birth

A whistle from the window

indicates spring has peeked its bald head from the pit of winter, 

a fleet of emerald parrots beckones to be heard

all perched in order on these telephone lines. 

Spring debuts her undercoat

with thunderous waves sending an echo across the valley, 

lingering sunshine on the horizon

meant to keep us wandering further more.

Her stench is of sulfur and honeysuckle begs for

big breaths in to drink her release. 

People start to shed their second skins,

pushing out their bellies and letting down their hair, 

All for the chance to be bathed in the newness of season. 

Like sunflower heads, we lift our chins,

pupils gaze hard until our retinas soften. 

Petals of past days no longer show signs of fading, 

we brighten under the birth light, 

of spring's glittering spotlight. 

 

Untitled 

The last day of school is the first day of the rest of our lives. 

The skirts of school girls show hems cut to release the angst, 

pinched grins against golden skin as if aging never existed. 

Nothing to fear but grown ups becoming men and women, 

becoming the sins of their adolescence, 

for these rebels know not of summer haste. 

Their paper mâché cloaks were made from moonlit dusk, 

when sprinklers on the horizon line bounced off bare chested 20-somethings, 

and watercolor bled down their legs revealing rain-freckled interiors and glitter-filled veins. 

Rolled another joint for the sake of staying up and it was something to do. 

The niceties between ex's lit up in the thick of the radio waves, 

between you and I, they were never going to last. 

Falling first for their playlists then secondly for fervent lust, 

sex really can manifest from boredom when the days refuse to end. 

Summer calls, 

we gather at the hemline where women sew fringe onto denim, 

stitched from their regrets and risks in the hopes they will last through next three months.