Used and abused

Still standing strong

You are the one I lean on

Who knows how to turn it around

With me through thick and thin

No matter what, where, or when

The pain of being without you

Excruciating

There for me, my dad

“No matter what,” he promised

By my side

Refusing to ever give up on me - no matter what I did

If everyone else gave up

My Dad would stand by me

Telling me he believes in me

Knows I am strong

Okay,

I’m going to tell them.

It’s been weighing on me for awhile.

Most of my friends know,

And they should know too.

But I’m scared.

So

So

Scared.

Perhaps the first

Was the open sky

Infecting above the carpeted ground.

Books astray in an old wicker basket,

Just enough room for a girl to climb in.

Crayons drawing, thoughts wild; just

imagine at your fingertips

The World.

Police tape lines the yard

I walk past

Baby blue house in cookie-cutter neighborhood

I look down and it says welcome

I quickly step in and close the door

so the camera flashes don’t glimpse inside

When I think of Iowa,

I think of cattle,

I think of the rattle under the road,

driving by humble abodes.

I imagine cornfields,

I imagine barns,

driving by the farms,

I hear the rumble of tractors,

The fire hisses, flickering,

as it lay encaged by a thick black sheath of iron.

Cloth stockings droop down− bare and bereaved.

Pure, white snow is drifting

down from the blank upper atmosphere.

The gray and white dog routinely scampers

Sitting on my grandpa Larry’s lap,

laughing and smiling.

Going everywhere on the cart smiling.

Smiling the way he laughs.

Going to the hospital trying to smile,

but I can’t.

Rushing to his room I run.

The ties to your ancestry

Binding a great family tree,

With this can you be truly free?

Now you have these choices three:

Embrace your blood,

An old-new bud.

Refuse the bonds

For fields beyond.

Sometimes things happen

It is a part of life

But no one said it would be this hard

Take her back to the start

In the beginning it was all fun and games

Once I was through the door, I dashed down the stairs to my room, flinging myself onto my bed, sobbing. I felt so stupid, so clutzy, so worthless. Questions flooded my mind. Who am I? Am I really Amy? Or am I someone else? I didn’t know anymore.

Knock-knock-knock.

Day and night become irrelevant 

Time is no longer marked by the movement of the sun

But rather the hours passed in front of a screen

I loved you

And you loved me

Many nights we stayed awake together

Holding you close

Every time singing

Rhymes of geese and shoes

Every night

I get part of her one day.

And a part of her the next.

I rarely see the same side twice.

But I don’t blame her,

 Because she is dying inside.

He makes me laugh

He makes me smile

We goof off

He sees a side of me that no one else sees

The silly side the ridiculous side

The “Let’s make up a word to mean this” side

We have each other’s back

They’ve run out of garbage bags to use as body bags.

Power lines cracked in half like splintered pencils are strewn through the streets

neighborhoods panic as the ground forgets what being solid is again

you are like the sun:

oblivious to time’s existence

wake up at noon to eat dessert

and watch television reruns.

you are sleepless nights

and grease stained fingers

covered in cuts and bruises and scabs.

you are like the war

My blood is not pure.

Siphoned through custom it puddles as an unholy poison. 

A mixture between castes that courses sin through my veins

Broken tradition seeps through my marrow

and pools black in the hardened pupils of my grandmother

As the years go by and we outgrow our old faces and our old skin and our old identities, 

I wonder to myself if we are really becoming new people at all, 

or if we are simply just accumulating more years and more selves 

She’s not sure what to make of herself

stranger at home 

unfamiliar face in a sea of faces that

should be everything she’s looking for

I fell in love with the first taste of that awakening flavor. The clouds of egg drops melted on my tongue and were followed by the dark earthiness of wood ear mushrooms. I thought I was drinking liquid amber, bright with acidity and warm with the red kiss of chilies.

Hi my name is Ayiana

Once upon a time,

I was a young girl

Seeing the world through rose colored glasses

my mother sobbed to herself at the kitchen table

Wondering why

Crying tears that would not relinquish 

It’s hard to understand what

to feel when his words say

he loves me but the tone of

his voice says the only thing

he cares about is himself.

Scars stain his back

and my wrists

but the only real scars are

“Ma, it’s morning. It’s time to get up.”