GOOD WOMAN
You are a good woman. Hips and thighs decorated in stretch marks like
tattooed lightning bolts. Switchblade hidden in your eyeliner because
going out at night alone isn’t safe. You are still good, full of fury and
seething teeth. You have every right to be angry. When you eat worries
for breakfast you are still a warrior. When you leave the bed unmade
you still have it made. People can’t imagine a world without you in it,
love the way you make chicken noodle soup. Whether it is made from
scratch or warmed from the can, it came from your gentle hands. You are
a good woman when you pop the champagne and cause a problem by
having a good time. Good when you aren’t afraid to turn up the volume
of your own life and cause a scene. You are good when your hair is wild
like brambles, your stomach soft like the flesh of a peach. You are a good
woman if you are alone and build a fence around the front porch of your
body. A wedding ring is not the only thing that makes a woman whole.
We all came out wet and pink and screaming, but women were the only
ones told to keep quiet. You: salty woman. Thick woman. Patient woman.
Contrarian woman. Jawbreaker woman. Devil-trembles-at-the-sight-ofher
woman. You are a good woman.

YOU CAN’T HAVE IT ALL
after Barbara Ras
but you can have strawberries
red like rubies, fat enough to take up
all the space in your cheek.
You can have swing sets waiting for your legs,
which grew up way too fast, to pump in and out
like a child’s, full on joy. You can have memories
of your grandmother’s hands sifting through
the cupboards to find you something
to eat even though you said you weren’t hungry.
Eager to make sure you are never
empty of anything.
You can have a double rainbow appear
on a random day in April and wonder
about the hands of God. You can have summer,
the season most likely to keep its word, keep your skin
tender and sweating and craving Mama’s cold
iced tea to press against your neck. You can have
hope. Tie it to your tongue, thread it with the veins
of your pumping heart, let it keep you
afloat through life’s sticks and stones.
You can’t have it all, but there are many
things left for your hands to hold on to.

MORNING ROUTINE
I remembered to take my meds:
tiny, sad-shaped remedies that remind
my anxiety and depression to find
another place to collapse.
Woke before the moan of the garbage truck
and my children wiping sleep from their eyes.
Brewed coffee, drowned it in vanilla oat milk.
Wrote out affirmations like “I am capable”
and “I am loving the woman in the mirror.”
Read the bible and prayed for understanding,
appreciated its silk-thin pages against the pulp of my fingers.
Walked on the treadmill for my silly
little mental health.
Felt the heat of the shower, all before 9am.
Tomorrow might look different
but right now, I feel grounded,
my feet poised to face the hours.

I’M DONE ADULTING
Let’s be mermaids.
Grow fins and befriend
bubblegum-pink jellyfish
and dolphins sharp as scholars.
Discover what it’s like
for our breath to smell
of salt, for our hands to grab
fistfuls of sand from the ocean floor.
What I mean to say is,
let’s get away and be
something other than ourselves.
Rent a cabin with the girls
and get drunk on giggles
and white wine.
Book a red-eye just to see
the sunset over Central Park.
Grab the closest open hand
and go dancing in the rain.
Stick our tongues out and try to catch
God’s tears. Let’s give these walls
something to miss and something
to talk about when we come home.