not our kingdom

Not Our Kingdom

written by: Jennifer Boyd

@jenniferboyd96

 

I’ve been thinking about how flora and fauna
are as distant as the heavens and together as 
landscape. There are so many lessons I’ve 
forgotten from Ecology 101 but the way you
look at me reminds me of the things that
matter. Our ecosystem—your mother’s 
Honda Accord—and my forever need for 
love stories and happy endings, the gifts 
the earth offers to us as softness bared. I 
am busy mapping the distance between 
kingdom and domain when I begin to 
understand how good it is to belong 
to someone. This is not our kingdom.You leave me in a dream I cannot keep 
but when I flower into the shape of 
your name I am so close to remembrance. 
How do we unknow? I can’t help but hope 
that the mapleswamp of my heart will 
someday bloom into meadow and delicate 
will be a language I can speak. In our kingdom 
I am less fauna and more flora and we are 
alone in our reign. In our kingdom I am less 
furious rhythm and more kind angelsong, less 
lion of prey and more bird of paradise. How 
beautiful you are when unflinching. How 
beautiful you are when rapturous. The 
textbooks forgot to give a name to how 
the fauna in me unravels when your hands 
flare like wings and I blossom in your 
palms, locked into honeysuckle sweetness 
and wondering if there is more than one 
species of familiarity, one other than the 
kind we know when the windows are down
just enough to hear God. I imagine that 
in this landscape I taste less like harvest 
moon, shadow whisper, more like morning 
dew, beads of citrus. We are alone in our 
say it somehow’s, our kingdoms and angels. 

The still in your breathing ties me in 
forget-me-knots and I realize that this 
is not ecology but a lesson on how to 
be gentle. This is not our kingdom, 
but it’s heaven or this.

LOVER'S CURSE

Gloria was a grump,
delightful Felicity a frump,
Sara a bit of a chore
Liz liked gore,
Azi cried alot
Jill cared not a jot
for anyone, I learned
Cecila's stomach churned,
Roberto enjoyed her food
In public, Edie was rude,
Faizi liked to laugh
Katie liked to barf,
Esmeralda loved to ski
until she broke her knee,
Toni drempt of fame
but ended on the game,
Jen constantly made love
worn out, she resides above,
Queenie liked her drink
spent her days throwing up in a sink,
Julie adored her kids,
both are on the skids,
Siham adored money
was always miserable, never funny,
Frankie cared for wealth
spent a fortune on her health,
Jasmine was dour
more nettle than flower,
Ruby liked to cook,
Cynthia preferred a book,
Fill wanted to marry,
she eventually met Barry,
Aysha had great beauty
and was shrewdly dotty,
Anna was a shrew
which everyone but me knew,
Kath used excessive perfume-
smoking me out of my bedroom,
Pauline constantly showered
while Jackie always glowered
at strangers in the street-
where Carol and I met
on New Years Eve 2011
and for a month I was in heaven,
until my short affair
with nimble Clair,
Toni ate sparingly
lean meat and leaner celery,
Jo ate five times a day,
No one got in her way
of food, while Chris ate 
tons of icecream, getting stuck in a gate
one day when off to work,
I took the opportunity, like a jerk,
to leave waving goodbye
from my car. Why?
Essie was beside me 
and again I needed to be free,
which a month later so did she!
Mitch bought me another
borrowing it off her brother,
who much bigger than me,
once more I was impelled to flee.
Suzanne in France
lead me a dance,
having other men every day
when I was away,
while Adalene
worked on my brain
and Genevieve broke my heart,
briefly, when apart
holidaying in the Alps with Jean
until her curiosity done
she came back and apologised,
and thereafter we thrived,
and would still be together
had not Heather
seduced me one day
when Genevieve was looking the other way
and did not see
Heather kissing me
by the pool
in Dakar, Senegal,
or making love
in rainy Vaduz,
holding hands in Bern
near a milk churn
having a bit of a lover's palava
in Bratislava.
When she found me with Ruth in Moscow
Genevieve told me sharpely to go,
I went. Ruth went off with Jean
and I took the first plane home,
meeting Jess in Heathrow
we took a taxi to Wivenhoe,
living there a year,
where fattened up with calorific beer
dressed now in grandad fashion
I started making a sullen impression
on even those who loved me,
but still, good reader, I needed to be free
so here I am now with Daphne
the final woman for me.

I met Adele in my son's first school
so, reader, I guess I'm just an unstructured fool,
for along came Celeste, Diane and Frick
making me still a colossal p......k.

deprivedkat You're pretty for a black girl

deprivedkat
You're pretty for a black girl

Now,

What is that supposed to mean?

Whether it be deliberate or a slight misconception
the words sting.
They sting because they aren't just words.
They are ideals used to define me in all the wrong ways.

It's called a preconceived stereotype,
not a compliment.

 An insult to dampen my mood,
An indication that the color of my skin
factors into whether I'm deemed beautiful and
that kind of implication
can definitely rub a woman of color
the wrong way.

Since when am I only pretty in my own race and inferior to any girl who is not black?

I am beautiful period.
I am not pretty for a black girl,
nor am I exotic or an exception to your standards of beauty.

i tried to kill someone once

kas
i tried to kill someone once
this is how it happens
it's the last day the temperature will be
above thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit
until February
you're not looking at the date
it's just the end of November
the middle of the night in the middle of a road
at the end of November
the hum of this small town hurts your ears
you're stuck in a dream where everything you see
turns into a weapon
this is how it happens
you knocked back sharp, amber liquid
to make this place feel a little more okay
and it only worked halfway
no matter how soft the edges are
you bruise your hips when you
run into them in the dark
you're sucking on your fourth cigarette when
a police officer pulls over and asks
how you're doing today
in the too-bright white of the headlights
the sick taste of Red Stag sticks to
the roof of your mouth
the mouth that you're moving into a smile
the mouth exhaling plumes of smoke at the ground
you're okay
"i'm okay."
you don't tell him what you're really doing
you're really taking all of your
thoughts about stopping your pulse for a walk
you don't tell him you've been
chasing ambulances all night long
please, officer don't leave me alone, you don't say
he tells you to have a good night and drives away
and this is how it happens
the moon smiles at you with every single one
of its tiny, sharp teeth
nobody but your cat finds you in that bathtub
nobody but your cat watches you rise from red water
watches it drip drip drip
from every chasm carved in your left arm
nobody but your cat saw the soft animal of your soul
shiver from the cold that day
it's the first day the temperature
dropped below
thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit inside your chest

ORIGIN

Origin

written by: Evelyn

@sanepoet

We live in the small things;
The infinite blackness
Is more vast than the ocean.
We are naught
But a boat floating in the midst.
Not a word to be heard across the waters,
Not a hint of warmth to mask the chill
of the wind.
Riding on the waves,
Going against the flow,
Fast or slow;
No, there isn't much difference.
Everything gets back to the shore,
Dirtied by the sand, or
Fleshed out by the seagulls.
Things don't change.

Rivers to bring you home
Streams to cast you off
Cliffs to fall from
Lagoons to hide in;
They will take a bit of you
And alter your senses;
They break you into pieces,
They take your breath away
But we all go back
To where we used to be.

We have to turn still
But move a bit;
We spiral like the ripples,
We drown underneath.

At the center, we meet
The last point to seek;
The start and the finish
At the center, we meet.