Celebrate National Poetry Month with new poems daily, illustrating a variety of voices and perspectives in contemporary poetry.
I IDENTIFY AS
A flicker of self;
A lightning
Bolt of emotion;
A slip into a storm;
Cleaner
Than an empty
Hole;
Blue tongue pressed;
Water swigged;
Memory.
I require space
To swallow
What has happened to me
And convert it into
Breast and ass
Tissue.
I will be beautiful
In my own language.
I will be
More than a self
And less than a person.
What will echo will depend
On not what I say
But how
The folds of my throat
Quiver.
I slept through every
Childhood earthquake
So I never learned how
To stand in a doorway
Comfortably.
A crack in a wall is
Its own form of light.
A door is
In many ways
A wall.
***
Photograph of Joshua Jennifer Espinoza courtesy of Joshua Jennifer Espinoza.
