my greataunt died a short while ago, and Ive been getting spam messages from her email account since then.

strange days

You are pretty, and i'm going to leave you alone.

You are tortured, and i'm going to leave you alone.

You are beautiful, and i'm going to leave you alone.

You are love incarnate, and i'm going to leave you alone.

You gave me burning memories, and i'm going to leave you alone.

I'm going to leave you alone, i'm going to leave you alone.

academic feminism has taught me to ask these questions whenever I write:

Who could see this?

How would someone else interpret this?

Is what I'm saying reflective of what I mean to say to me?

Would what I'm saying be reflective of what I mean to someone else?

g

g

I would like to be the last man standing

long after the woman, dancing,

long after the drummer, joining in

I would like to sit here and grit my teeth

grit cause I feel it but Im not dancing, I'm not drumming. i'm enduring.

I'm enduring cause that's what feels right. I'm enduring cause it's
what I'm good at
is
if you look me in the eye and ask me if I will endure, if I'm patient,
if I'll still be there, standing...

I'll look you in the eye and with all that I have, my eyes will scream
YES until all you can do is look away.

feeling comes in different ways. she will dance, he will drum, and I
will be

the last man standing.

f

f

she stood beside the others, waiting for the girl onstage to sing.

then the girl on stage began to sing.

so the girl (woman) in the crowd was hit as if by a brick.

the brick sat her down
in the middle of the standing crowd.

the brick grabbed her arm
then that idea-shaped brick opened her backpack and pulled out a
notebook.

so she sat there and wrote. she tried to draw the brick, maybe just
the outline, maybe trying to form the shape using words instead of
lines maybe.

the end