Mosaic

Dear Lady Lunar,

I know how treacherous dreamscapes can be...our footing consciously solid in the waking world; our steps in a cadence of onefootinfrontoftheother, our mantras anchoring us through years of effort and tears and therapy. And then here comes this world every night besieging us from behind our eyes, and our iron-fisted grip melts into something elusive and mercurial. What can we do but gather the visions into words? Your post about dreams (re)minded me of this poem and of the solidarity the world of women share across all lines and lineages, across all languages. Here are my pieces, (re)arranged:

Mosaic

>>“Please, don’t hurt my daughter!”<<

...Did those words come before or after
the beer bottles shattered against the dumpster
making abstract mosaics under a half moon midnight?
Does it even matter?
Because the anger
in her voice was indiscernible
from a desperate fear
squeezing her pitch to an arcing high
cracking her voice, the air
a canyon in time
dug across the parking lot
rocking my never snug sleep
through obsolete single pane glass,
and my vigilant ass was up.
One hand hyper-dialing 911 while one split the blinds
finding focus on the girl, her mother
calling to her in broken English
“Mija! Come home!”

In the alley: two men beside a truck,
swaggering drunken posture calling to her like a dog.

“911. What is your emergency?”
“I’m not sure. Send the police—there are men breaking bottles
and threatening a girl!!”
Races. Ages. Vehicle. Address.
“Ma’am, police are on their way.”

But five…
eight…
twelve minutes later ’til they drive down my alley
spitting spotlight on glittered glass
floating stale beer lazy circles in a pothole.
Spotlights down the alley, up my house, across my bed
the silence insincere—
a mustered
broken
pause
strangled and nauseous as two
cruisers
crawled
to a stop a block away,
side by side in opposite directions
so the officers can
…talk.

But the girl is five minutes gone,
half-bent and slinking
into a truck fucking rubber into pavement

as her mother melted up the stairs

with her head in her hands,
trying to push the tears back inside,
to push
the tears
back inside
past her eyes rising moonward
to her God,
down past her sinus
and into her throat to coat the words
hinged on rusted pain.
A refrain.
A lockjawed crimson chorus
crying “please”
chanting “please”
she's sobbing “Please! Don’t hurt my daughter!”

*******

“I Don’t Need Anyone!!”

Those words, my mantra.
My steel spine
refined over the years,
my opaque prayer
cloaked by words
broken
by swelling sobs,
half-choked on
held
-in breath,
all the way to the bathroom mirror,
still the only one I own.
And then the stone gaze sets,
quivering lips go stoic,
and though some tears fall
it is silent and heroic.
And only I
ever watch this scene.
Hear the warbled hiss
of syllables krilled
through teeth bared at my reflection
tangled on old steam, streamed
and dried a deviant
vertical.
I try to look past the warm, fragile cracks
into my eyes reflecting eyes reflecting eyes,
but only see the
fractures,
the oblique seams that push apart,

that never seem to pull

together.
My face abstracted,
made mosaic beneath the shadows
beneath the steam.
Maybe if the mirror weren’t screwed into the wall...
maybe if I
could
just
look
behind it,
I could see backwards,
behind the woman,
to the tongue-held girl
who knows why
she only cries in front of herself.
Who still knows the weight of three boyswillbeboys
constricting her breath, the breadth
of a decade.
The weight
of a secret
so lead-heavy in her gut
she could only ever hope to float it.
On vodka, on whiskey, on rum,
a numb and blunted
chorus of callous
sentry standing guard.
>Standing guard<
>Standing guard<
From my gut to my gullet comes the cadence,
“I don’t need Anyone!!”
“I fucking don’t need anyone!!”

*******

“I just wanted to see the Holy Land” you said.

The tremor in your hands
hijacking your voice,
poised on silent abyss. A bliss
you mainline modestly.
But I pry.
Because beautiful isn’t big enough
to wrap its gossamer wings around you
when you dare see me seeing you.
I mean, into you.
Through you.
That hot July day.
That Jerusalem afternoon
when you set out to meet your God
on the fragile breath of faith,

bathed blonder by that exotic sun than anyone that day.

That is when he first saw you.
He with a name you never knew until the trial.
The denial must have been severe
those first few hours.
The bass-line of that last song you ever heard a virgin
following you out of the club,
crucified on a Judas kiss,
and onto foreign sand.
His hands dissecting every part of you.
Your body made mosaic
underneath your splintered God.

I know...
You have bared the scars
when I promised not to look,
and I didn’t.
I swear.
Because I don’t need eyes to map your scars,
my fingers are enough.
They know the way,
can trace the breaks
in my own skin, where
even now
those boys
can
still
get in.

You tremble “stay with me tonight.”

My arms wrap into you,
caress the breath from you
because I think tonight
you would die if you could
just
stop
breathing.

You tell me you wish I could hold all of you.
I say “I am”.
And in the most delicate exhalation
you say “no”.
You tell me “no”.
“Mandy what you don’t understand
is that I broke myself that day.
Split myself over and over again,
like cells in reverse.
Because I would rather be in a fucking million pieces
than let him take me whole.”

And then I knew.

They will never get us whole.

She, Me, You.

We will focus our fight

to manipulate the shadows.

We will focus our light

to articulate our shadow.

They think that they can break us?

Leave us severed,

scattered,

scared?

Well tell me…

what is a mosaic

but some uniquely focused parts?

Girls, rearrange your pieces. 

Breathe them 

into Art.