How To, Francesca Block [sight word readers TXT] 📗

her for feeling cheated

by the body she’s stuck in

my love wants to change the world

she thinks she has so much to give

not realizing how much she takes from others

my love is loyal until she senses rejection of any kind

then she flies like a bird but has less memory

of where she came from

i would like to protect you from my love

she is the creator and the destroyer

she wants so much from you

she would kneel at your feet

and clutch at your heart

that’s the way she does things

but i am her slave

no longer

i will witness

the way you tilt your head

undulate your shoulders

fling me onto your back

cradle me

hold me upside down

whisper love lyrics into my ear

carry my pink purse not recall it all

run away

call me anorexic

tell me your ex-girlfriend was the love of your life

that you will never love anyone that way again

and my love and i will simply watch and wait

until we discover

who you really are

PART 3

love poems for girls

for the girls

i searched for him in the dancer dark

and i prayed for him in the new moon park

and i called to him with my poetry

but perhaps i was not yet ready

because he did not come

instead the girls danced along with their arms

full of flowers

songbirds on their shoulders

they made me strawberry smoothies

decked with parasols

and photographs of fairies

and they told me that i had helped them

now we want to help you they said

their tears were like the rain that washed

grief’s memory

from my back step

we put on my grandmother’s tattered silk kimonos

and my eight-inch platforms

took photos of each other laughing and glamorous

and ate red velvet cake on rose petal strewn plates

they were my sisters and my daughters

and in those moments i forgot he was not there

and i forgot to fear

that he might never come

pain is like an onion

remove one layer and the next is there

keep peeling, my beloved

peeling and chopping

putting in the pan

fry it to translucency

and eat it

let it digest

it’s only been a year and a half

since he took your heart from your chest

peeled it chopped it fried it ate it spit it out

eventually a new one will grow back

eventually

the tears

will stop

ornate

what makes you think you can be so ornate,

my darling?

even your name means princess

even your hair with its long black curlicues

even your eyes such dark blue as to be violet

what makes you think you can use such words

paving your poems with jewels and lights?

and your heart!

desiring that much

as if it were a victorian valentine in your chest

polished pink quartz chambers

or even an elizabethan pomegranate rose

a rococo clock all golden and decked with cherubs

ornate and especially your sorrow what makes you think?

this is what—

your birthright

your sorrow a guide to lead you on your journey

it says go forth be bold be brilliant

desirous of what is yours

for this is who

you are

teenage fairy: for m

i didn’t feel like i was enough

so i changed my nose

and i changed my skin

and i changed my bones

and i changed my blood

and i changed my home

and i changed my love

and i changed my clothes

and i changed my belly

and i changed my friends

and i changed my mind

until the man i wanted came to me

but after a while he left anyway

and i was alone with this new self

we slept in our bed with the roses she and i

and we sat by the pond waiting for water lilies

and we wrote poems to each other

and we photographed ourselves in the mirror

and i was still lonely, rummaging in the bed

in my sleep

seeking someone who had never been there at all

then this big-eyed, long-legged

fourteen-year-old fairy wrote to me

and she said she didn’t think she was beautiful

and i told her not to let her pain confuse her

trick her into thinking untruths

and i told her that her pain was not her fault

but that she could use it to make beauty

instead of to hurt herself

and that night i slept peacefully

in my own arms

the little mermaid: for ama

you dreamed of gills so you would not drown in the

sea of him you dreamed of a tail instead of legs to

keep him out you gave up your voice hoping that

would bring you the casing of green and silver scales

layered over hips shining your long legs fluttering

into fins where once were feet in shiny mary janes

you had the right hair already white lighting your

face you had a strand of your mother’s pearls

beneath your pillow you had the right dreams of

blue-green water faraway coastal cities where you

belonged instead of those parched towns where the

men hunted creatures like you and mounted them in

their living rooms but you did not get your fish tail

and your voice was gone even your legs didn’t work

quite right anymore you hobbled away from home

leaving a trail of blood and pearls men and women

followed you wanted to touch you and you let them

hoping one would know the spell but it was not until

you reached the pacific and flung yourself naked

into the surf your hair writhing like seaweed on the

water your eyes turning greener with the reflection

your breasts and between your legs finally your own

this is when you grew gills to really breathe this is

when you grew a tail prettier than your best french

gown this is when you found your scream your

poetry your voice

neptune’s daughter

confused by her fish’s tail

she wanted legs to walk with

a womb to birth a child

she blamed her father for this impediment

to her true nature

something she had inherited from him

like the potential for illness

oversensitivity

a tendency toward