Atlas

Atlas

On my bad days: I feel like the atlas, crying out everywhere everywhere everywhere I feel like Atlas, holding apart what so desperately wants to come together All those people crying out that it hurts oh, it hurts the way my shoulders shake and quiver tremble beneath my hands the way pages do, letters pressed gently into paper making myth and legend Legend says that Atlas’ punishment was borne of his pride; That his hubris had been his undoing and now it trapped him with the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Atlas did not bear the weight of the world. Atlas held the sky upon his shoulders and the ground ached beneath his feet, they cried out to each other with a force that brought him to his knees. The sky wept with great, gasping sobs and it fell as rain, washing the earth clean her suffering cleansed those below and the earth shook. What had not been cleansed by rain was tested by fire and found wanting. Atlas bowed his head- who was he to stand in the way of a love so great that the tremblings of it shook the earth and flooded the plains? Somewhere, a woman held an atlas in her lap and cried. Somewhere, an atlas answered everywhere everywhere everywhere. And Atlas wept, for his pain was not enduring the weight of the world or the sky upon his shoulders; the world’s heart lay in his hands. (they shook- they trembled with the heaviness that comes with love) Everything hurt. He would bear the sky on his shoulders and the earth under his feet and he would take the suffering of the world in his hands and he would hold it and he would bear it because he had to. Atlas’ punishment was borne of his pride he was to bear the sky upon his shoulders. Later that night I cried, traced the constellations until I found one that looked like a man, held him close to my chest and whispered that the pain was not his own to bear he told me it hurt everywhere everywhere everywhere.

'what they did last night' they set my aunts house on fire i cried the way women on tv do folding at the middle like a five pound note. i called the boy who used to love me tried to ‘okay’ my voice i said hello he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened? i’ve been praying, and these are what my prayers look like; dear god i come from two countries one is thirsty the other is on fire both need water. later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.

-Warsan Shire

tell me, do you remember the names of all the girls you have loved?

looking back i can tell that i loved girls from the moment that i walked into that first grade classroom and saw Katie Fox, all breathless energy and hands moving like butterflies while she drew a crowd of excited children around her with vibrant stories. i wanted so badly to be friends with her only i didn't know what i meant by friends because i wanted to hold her butterfly hands in mine and sit with her on the playground while everyone else went by. six years old and i had an unnamed secret and longing that i had no words to describe, that i couldn't tell existed because no one ever said anything about girls who love girls. i never did get to hold her butterfly hands but we were friends in the closest of ways and that was enough because to hold a butterfly is to break its wings. in second grade i met Celina Pan who i would love until she moved away to Texas, and i would love her afterwards although it's hard to love someone when you can barely find the words to say to them. we were friends forever is what we promised and i can tell that i loved her because i told her everything and we used to hold hands on our way out to recess in fifth grade behind the school building because it felt natural and it felt like home. i still had that unnamed longing clenched inside my heart except now it had a name and a face and a voice that changed with every girl i loved and every girl i still do. in eighth grade i dated Bianca for most of the year but now the longing itself had a name and it was a dirty word i could not say and was not supposed to admit. high school came and went with a succession of dyed hair, inked arms and pretty smiles and i still remember all their names. if i can tell you that i have loved girls from the time i didn't even understand what it meant how dare you think that you can change me and that this choice of who i love is just a rebellion against the system. it isn't a rebellion as much as i wish it could be just so that i have something to claim i'm fighting for instead of feeling dirty and ashamed for wanting a pair of soft lips, pale thighs instead of something a man could give me. a man cannot give me the feeling i had while watching Katie laugh in first grade, the way i could imagine us sitting still while the world revolved, the feeling that bubbles in my chest when i look at old pictures of Celina and i together because forever felt like it could be real when her hand wrapped around mine, and no man could give me back the hours that Bianca and i spent writing bad love poetry and laughing while we hid from our mothers. looking back i know that i loved them so please, try and tell me that i didn't. i will prove you wrong.

self-proclaimed and diagnosed is just another way to say 'fucked up'

I am a self-proclaimed bitch, a know-it-all fucking jackass of a person that obnoxious motherfucker you wish would just go away. Any name you can think of to call me I’ve probably called myself. My friend walked up to me the other day and told me I was a bitch but ‘that was just my personality’ and I just smiled and laughed, said 'I warned you when you became friends with me, everyone knows I’m a bitch’ so I didn’t start crying.

Some girl tried to pick a fight with me because her friend was upset about something I did (how dare she be mad without knowing the full story, without knowing what her friend had done to me. How dare she come charging up like a knight in shining armour except in this story the dragon is secretly the princess who’s been trapped in an ugly body by society’s expectations; don’t kill the dragon we all shout except knights don’t listen so she killed the dragon anyway and was confused when there was no princess to save) and she tried to pick a fight by calling me a bitch and a terrible person and telling me I should just go die because I didn’t deserve to live and I just smiled and laughed and agreed with her with everything she said.

It’s hard to pick a fight with someone who agrees with what you’re saying. She called me a bitch and told me to die and I said I know but I didn’t say that I’d tried because telling people you want to die is the moral equivalent of kicking them while they’re down; it just makes them feel guilty so they halt and try to reverse the train with fake apologies.

Trains don’t go in reverse anyway so I let her words barrel over me and took all the blame that I didn’t deserve onto myself and said I’d let myself cry later, when everyone was out of sight.

Nobody likes to see a bitch cry. It reminds them of their humanity and the fact that yes we are all people and inside that person you say is less than a person, the one you call a bitch and terrible and say that 'I guess they can’t help it, some people are just natural mother fuckers who need to be put down and taught a lesson’ yeah the person you say that to is exactly that a person.

I’m a person but no one will believe me so instead I say I’m a self-proclaimed bitch. That way when people tell me things about myself they think they’re the first person to notice, I can smile and laugh and then I can destroy them for hurting me because that’s what bitches do.

This sword works two ways; when you tell someone they are less than a person they will believe you. You can demean them and unmercifully beat them down but you had better not turn your back, better keep one eye open when you sleep because less than human means I will have no qualms about destruction.

Your weapon is my humanity and you in your unwillingness to unlock my chains have given me the tools to render my cage obsolete.

Until the Possible and the Actual meet at Infinity

until the possible the almost whatcould’vebeen whatshould’vebeen andstillwhatcanbe it is everything that has ever been a maybe or possibly almost and sometimes hypothetical because nothing is impossible. study that closely; look impossible im possible i’m possible we hide creativity, positivity and hope inside our impossibilities for we love a second chance and a redemption of something you cannot come back from and the actual reality of yesterday of today that which is certainly and absolutely positively true this is always and forever it is an axiom an idiom (absolute) but how do we distinguish our reality from dreams? they seem real and real enough it seems. For some they dream and it is real for some they live and it is a dream. in the end, it's all real for we cannot bear to think of what would happen if it wasn't. And when they meet the possible and the actual at infinity who can say? nothing is impossible when everything is real.

eden for a sinner

i have this / and it isn’t a name / mouth full of strange words and broken teeth / Latin for flowers that don’t smell sweet anyway

i don’t have this / and it is a name / Greek for strength / courage and solid ground beneath your feet

we planted this / and it could be a garden / golden apples / made of lies and deceit

you left this / and it broke my heart / saying i was inhospitable to love / with my secrets and my tired eyes

they cried over this / viewed it as recompense / for the seeds we stole / to make our own Eden

i have this / and it is no longer yours / my lovely words, broken arrows and lies / life, abandon me to my own devices

and i will burn this heaven down