On Community

1. grief

the stars look down on me as i suffer with grief heavy-bodied and 
grave or gravid i can’t tell which
it would be a blessing for the clouds to break and send down
a birth of something new, blessed rain to the seeds that break
my water with child

2. fact and censorship

exile in place as silencing
i can’t say that or else they will stop listening
they will all pile on with condemnations, shaming
finger pointing they will call gentle,
‘exposing their vulnerability’ to challenge what they perceive as my greater power
and it makes me want to lift my skirt,
to have them behold the sacred vulva that is the fact they are so afraid to witness

3. on fire

our house is on fire
and outsiders fan the flames pour gasoline light more matches delight
in our inability to get out,
we’re done
and what they will have left is something sterile, maddening and generations-long to unpick and defuse

4. eye of needle

choices
leave one side or leave the other and be unwhole
straddle and be silenced in one place, silence myself to not feel directly the scorn and wrath that keeps witches under the structures
breaking loose from under the floorboards we dance and then they shut us up again
in the other place talk about the other way i’ve been shut up
which is the same really 
and meet the glances of popcorn eating shame as curiosity deference sidelong glances
it doesn’t work
and my exile is a narrow place mitzrayim
that is an eye of a needle i have to thread yet not do it alone

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