it’s hard to hold so many cups
at once
loss is inescapable
but freedom rings
a bell i’ve never heard
before
light blooms and heaven
is near like
maybe i’ll take the long way home,
tongue
the sickly sweet euphoria of
new scenery when
it calls to me,
soft and lovely like
god forgot
but i’m
woman
i’m woman and
when the wind purrs
i purr back
shed my disdain, i
hunt
for a new world order
and since you asked kindly,
in the future
time
is present
and since it doesn’t matter anymore:
when i asked for a little guidance
(from the universe)
i didn’t realize it meant i’d have
to do so much work
Sidewalks
forever-wet cement to remind us
of worlds yet to come
while shadows
play on
our
tongues
speak my language:
i can’t help but dream of
spring, fleeting and
sparse
all i’ve done is come back to rain
and pain i
can’t understand, a
brave surrender
to something new
i remember
remember?
the soft outer shell,
i remember
the flesh that surrounds
the heart,
i fiend for silence between
our bodies, i know we’ll
find a pearl
addictive
affection
like i forgot what it’s like
to find myself alone
at least i know
the way home
is always the same.
Mariah Freire is an Afro-Latinx poet born and raised in New York. She holds a degree in Communications from Boston University and lives in Brooklyn with two crazy cats. Her work has been published in “Girls Get Busy” Zine and is forthcoming in “Poetry Under Isolation,” “Cosmonauts Avenue” and others. She writes about things other than race (though sometimes race). You can find her on IG @maricfreire because her Twitter is nonsense and you shouldn’t be subjected to that.
Deezy Violet is a Nashville-based artist, as well as the guitarist and vocalist of grunge pop band Sad Baxter, which you can listen to here: https://sadbaxter.bandcamp.com.
