The following poem was my response to the Nazi Germany Seminar that Ziyana and I did. It was an emulation of sorts to the poem ‘The Jews That We Are” by Richard Michelson.
i.)
this is where
we all start.
i am three
and i am
twirling in the
living room
in my ’belle’ costume
from beauty and the beast.
my mother tells me
i look beautiful
and i feel it.
ii.)
i am nine
and i overhear
my mother
talking with
her friends.
i am supposed
to be in bed
but the sound
of their laughter
invites me
to get up
and listen
from the top
of the stairs.
i peer
down through
the railing
at them
just so
i can see
the tips
of their feet.
one of the women
says something
about her weight
and another—
my mother i think—
uses a word
that i’m not sure
i have ever heard
before;
diet.
i looked it up
in the dictionary
i was given for christmas
but didn’t fully
understand until
three years
later
when at only
the age of thirteen
one of
my friends
went on one
because she wanted
to look like
the women
in the movies.
i think that’s
when i started
trying to abstain
from mirrors
cause whenever
i look in them
all i can see
is my stomach
and how
it is not flat
the way
it is supposed
to be.
iii.)
i am eleven
and my grandmother
has died.
the only thing
that brings me
consolation
is the thick smell
of the
november night
the damp earth
the heaving
trees
and trembling stars.
all of it smells
cold and impossibly
intangible.
my mother can’t stop
crying so i ask her
to come sit outside
with me
cause it might help.
she looks at me
with stained eyes
and says
that she has just lost
the most important
woman in her life
the woman from whom
she was carved
and ‘fresh air’
will not fix that.
i mumble an apology
and sit
on the front steps
in the snow.
it never occurred
to me before
that one day
i too will lose
the most important
woman in mine.
iv.)
i am thirteen
and i don’t
understand
the difference
between being
called beautiful
and being whistled
at as i walk past
strange men
twice my age
who line
the wide
city streets
like the soul
lines the body.
i am wearing
hello kitty
underwear
under my clothes
and my hips
haven’t even
cracked yet.
i pretend
to enjoy it
cause all
my friends
seem to—
they have
taught me
to place value
in the men
who look at me
like an object.
v.)
i am fifteen
and i still
don’t know
how to wear
this skin
that i have been
given—
i crawl around
inside of it
at night
praying to grow
into it
while still
hoping
that i won’t—
i learn
to like the taste
of empty
cause maybe
if i starve away
the curves
the wolves
won’t look
anymore.
vi.)
i am sixteen
and a boy tells me
he loves me.
i say it back
cause that is
what i am supposed
to do.
vii.)
i am sixteen
and watching
the election
with my family.
i go to bed
that night
believing
that i would
wake up
to celebrate
the victory
of the first
female president
of the united
states of america.
i do not believe
that a man
who has been accused
of sexually assaulting
multiple women
will win.
i woke up the next day
and was reminded
that this
is a man’s world
and we are only
living in it.
viii.)
i am seventeen
and the hashtag
‘me too’
keeps surfacing
on my social media.
it makes me think
of being
aggressively catcalled
in a grocery store
and then feeling so sick
afterwards
that i leave
without buying
the eggs
my mother
asked me to get.
i don’t know why
but i do not partake.
viiii.)
i am seventeen
and i have never
truly been kissed
by a boy.
i think
i learned
to fear them
before i learned
to want them
i learned
to tell them no
before i learned
that some things
are okay
if you want them to be
i learned to shrink
to make myself
invisible
cause i don’t like
being looked at
i don’t like
being made aware
of my body
only after it is being
undressed
by another’s eyes
i don’t like
the pawing
and the fingerprints
and the way i feel
after being touched
cause i’m too scared
to move or cause i don’t
want to be rude—
cause it always
feels a little
like dying.
and this i regret deeply.
x.)
i am seventeen
and i have been told
more times
than i can count
to be quiet
and obey
like the woman
that i am.
what a shame
it is that
i never listen.
