pedestals and soapboxes

In the kitchen, in the kitchen

is where I was raised

cutting strawberries in early morning darkness- red dripping like blood

becoming

someone who would care, listen, talk

would you like anything to drink, tea? water? coffee?

come in, come in,

this is sacred

Is that not what it means to be a woman?

I can’t write, nothing’s coming out in whole, it’s all just bits. Bits about femininity and how I want my mother’s approval and how the idea of earth as a woman is comforting and how I wonder why so many women are witches now. Bits about how every daughter and mother has a tension of one not wanting to be like the other and the other bitter towards the one for taking away their life. Who were you before you were a mother. What am I if not a daughter. Bits about wanting to be feared, wanting a pedestal, wanting fingers dripping in honey and pomegranate blood. Bits about wanting to be a home for people, I want my bones to be safe for you to fall into, I want to always have space for the things that break. Bits about wanting to have gardens and bake bread and be quiet. Maybe all of that is womanhood. Maybe all of it is broken and holy.

HOLY NOT DIVINE. [soapbox break] dotting the Old Testament are a few “good” kings. They tore down the high places, the Asherah poles, the goddesses and idols, the witchcraft and sorcery, the pedestals.

Secular celebration of femininity is that- goddesses, idols, pedestals, witchcraft, female sexual pleasure, women tapping into their “divinity,” making themselves god. why did eve take the fruit

Women bring life, they are beauty, it is through a woman that God came into the world

We may not be divine, but we are holy, beloved.

It was a female lust for the divine that brought the downfall of creation.

A lie passed from mother to daughter and on and on and on, bleeding into the heads of women, you can be like god.

I don’t really want a pedestal, I’m not a fan of heights. I just want to be home and I want to be a home.

[exit soapbox]

GIRLHOOD

chickens purring in the backyard

sunny days spent barefoot

wear shoes lil you’ll get sick

racing neighbors and brothers down the pavement

days spent on my bed reading

days spent in my head

the kitchen

sitting in the treehouse

always outside

wishing i was a tree

dancing barefoot with a ghost

or maybe an angel

tell me little girl, what it’s like to be uninhibited

what does it mean to be a woman? what does femininity look like? why are women prettier? definition of woman, who am i, why does king sound better than queen? why is earth the mother? is it good to be a woman? what does it mean to be a woman?