March and May

Performed at HipLatina’s Sexual Assault & The Future of the #MeToo Movement, New York, NY - November 2018

The sidewalk was cold for spring
As arms swung around traffic signs
And beads were thrown
Into the crowds and on the streets
Green flushed bright against
Concrete and muddied buildings
As cold flushed my cheeks


My soreness ached
Throughout bone
Torn through some muscle
No matter how much beer I drank
Did I trip?
How did I get here?

I sat the way
Babies first sit
When they learn
they can carry their weight upright

Newborn eyes look up
“Can you help me?”
Wait, tell me again
How I got here.


This green beer always manages
to hit harder, doesn’t it?

It was the same feeling
Of smallness
Of Thumbelina size
Without her bravery or gusto

The same buildings
That swallowed me up
In March

Betrayed me
Before final exams
And end of the year parties

I was celebrating summer
while spring loomed
With a crook in its hand

I had eaten my pride
slice by slice
A greedy pie
That no one saw
Sitting in the kitchen


I never got to thank
The girl who asked me what happened
When I ran out of your room

I wish I could say thank you
I remember her name

My muscles sat afterward
In puddles of hot water
Steeping herbs
Unknotted

My bruise watched
From sunset to sunrise
Sunrise to sunset again

From one eye that
Thankfully, didn’t swell
Gentle red markings
Not quite burns or cuts
To gentle not to be hidden

I packed and packed foundation
And it saved me again and again

The kind that comes out of a pump
Bought at a drugstore
The kind that
But enough for people to start asking questions
Or for a priest to tell me,

This is what happens

When southern boys have too much whiskey

To “this is over”
And sprawled fingers
Grasped at my neck

I saw the spots and the stars
A gentle drowning
A surrendering

With my drunken arms limp
Held a heavy first
That pushed and ran
And ran and ran
How did I get here, again?