she speaks. i listen. a woman is a woman is
a flightless bird. she talks to ghosts, haunts Hampton Court. nest egg in her palms, eyes rolling in her head. words rolling wild from her wild tongue in wild company: the lioness, the tigress, the child queen. spurred into madness by a mad king. a baseless lord. a court of fools, mocking, leering, pressed rouge to corset. invaders of private spaces. holy moments are scarce. Ceruse slowly poisons will and wit. children are unborn. queens wilt, kings fester, corridors speak. a woman is a woman is
buried carefully, alive. weighed down by river stones, heavy limbs. the memory of man. a good corpse is quiet. this is why hauntings are loud. why the tower screams and the Valentines bleed. we are candles at risk of being doused if we do not spread our fire. everything burned is a casualty, only just.
it comes to this:
history unwrote me. you. all of us, consecutively. a genocide of memory. killing a former self loses power when you are not the one doing the killing. when you have not had time to say goodbye. a reflection hidden and mirrorless, shameful. behind closed doors, like beheadings and affairs. binds and wrappings. bear this shameful history of self-preservation, unwritten. between lines, behind unshared spaces. so little has changed, and we must break it.
Monica Robinson is a queer poet, photographer, and artist, and the self published author of 'Exit Wounds', an original art and poetry collection. Monica currently resides in Indianapolis with her girlfriend and husky, and is currently writing her second book. Beyond this, she has extensive plans to build her own library and change the world.