"They Said I Must be One of the Wonders..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

I think your scars are so beautiful. I understand their impulse
and why they lie on your skin
and I forgive you for everything and anything,
I am not society, I will not call on any judgement,
I can read the pattern as surely as I know my own patterned heart.
There’s always something dancing around
in the background, I forgive you for that, even though you won’t let me look at it.
You can tell me nothing explicitly, you cannot read your fortune
out of a cookie
or scratch it in the snow of a crystal ball,
I am not asking you to.
I have my own. They curl quietly on my shoulders,
nowhere near their god-given eighty percent,
(your skin will only heal eighty percent)
(and that's where it stops; no more, never what it was)
white and slender and almost invisible, my own obscure fortunes,
my own sad patterns,
every day I ever found fault with myself. I am not asking you for
anything concrete or any solid words,
truly I am not asking you to tell me any secrets,
this is just the truth.
This is no declaration of love, this is not my eloquent love poem, this is not
a request for what’s yours to be mine. This is
just the truth, which is that
I remember falling into the pond, falling and falling, because my feet couldn’t
grip the lining, because my hands couldn’t find an edge,
I remember trying over and over
and my head going under and under in warm cloudy water.
This is just to tell you that my sheets are stained with my own blood, this
is just to say that I read a thousand little slips of paper
looking for myself,
this is for me, I am not society, I am not your fellow man,
I bear no judgement bound in my clothes,
I hold no answers fastened in my hair like combs,
but I forgive you for every bifurcated epidermal cell
and every wound weeping your red blood, and in return (I
will be wholly honest) all I ask is that you
forgive me also.

---

Play harmonica, play harmonica with a mouth
I swear is sweeter than my own mama’s dried peach pie.
I will wear a blue dress for you
and dance until my feet want to fall off,
I will dance until my head bows down in a mess of curls and sweat.
Play me harmonica and I will listen to music
the way some folks drink wine. My mama came from the South,
we don’t stint on noise there, I can laugh with the best of them.
You can make me laugh.
You sit on the steps and play harmonica, and I will get my hair up
and show you what a Southern girl looks like
when she’s maybe a little bit in love. I will be straight out of
Langston Hughes. I will walk in the sound of trumpets.
I will forget to try and fit in. I will be a bright carousel
like you never saw outside some pair of
theme park gates, all painted lunging horses and flower-strewn chariots,
I will be goddamn.
If you play harmonica, I’ll teach you a couple new songs.
My mama gave me a piece of Tennessee to lie pretty in my eyes.
She poured hot weather and good music
into my tiny naked body
when I was a crowder-pea sized lump in her belly. When you play me
that harmonica
I swear
God Himself says That’s a Southern girl who’s maybe a little bit in love.
And why not? when your sweet mouth is kissing music
out of a piece of cold metal
and it’s singing hallelujah.

Comments

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

oh, goodness. well -- i've been having mood troubles and sleep troubles and social troubles and a bit lately, but i've been taking hormones since december and it just occurred to me last night that they are hormones and they can do that, so i called my doctor to see what i should do. and hopefully we'll get that all sorted out. and -- oh! my folks've got a new cat. her name's basha and her fur's a beautiful patterned grey and her eyes are just so blue, blue. she's sort of a texture freak -- she likes rubbing her face against the edge of cardboard boxes, or running her paws over blankets and purr-purring, or rolling about with her back on the hardwood floor -- and she's just a silly dear. and -- a cute little teapot i'd been looking longingly at for a while went on sale. it's shaped like an owl. a cute little owl. :3 and i'm sad a lot, and weary a lot, and i have a real, honest, in-my-bones aches and pains -- but i did buy that teapot. and i saw this poem this morning and it made me think of you.

oh i love that song -- ! there's so much passion and exultation and even wholesome beauty in it. you are fantastic for referencing it.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*lovesontight* I hope that your doctor has some answers to ease things up, and I think the new cat sounds wonderful, and OWL. I LOVE owls. And I know what it's like to be sad a lot and weary a lot, and I pray that it passes from you (like clouds do) and I think that's a wonderful poem.

I read it in a book of love poems I have! and pretty much immediately fell in love.

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

*lovesback* i hope so, too -- and i'm going to a new psychiatrist soon. i hate always changing, but it might be okay. and my only regret about the teapot is that they'd sold out of the adorable little cups that went with -- i'm glad you like owls. :D they're a good critter to like. (and! here's a picture-of-cat, so you can see.) that's a beautiful prayer. <3 thank you for it.

^__^ glee ~

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I think it's okay. I think it's important to change when you need to. <3 And those cups are illegally cute (I LOVE OWLS). (cat! She's a doll). Thank you.