Poetry : Who are we?

This is a collection of poetry inspired from the events of the relentless attacks on Palestine and prior : analyzing my own relationship to my anger, my once toted idea of retribution, and of the lost art of honor in war. Open to conversation. Please treat each other kindly.

5.

pray to one god, pray to them all
i pray to a different name

4. (skin)

My skin is jello
translucent and slick.
I don’t know when I noticed it change
sweet and red like a pomegranate.
It crushes with a pop between my fingertips
I don’t smush it often, it’s quite painful and it’s never quick to grow back.
but i love the feeling of the crumble.

you saw me crush it once
and you took that as an invitation.
”i’ve never seen skin like this before”
and it was something you wanted.

one day I let the jello go stale
let the water dry out from the edge until it was nothing but powder to the touch.
when you pinched me you grumbled
”what did you do to it?”
I felt bad so I let you back in
closer
and you bit away at me to my ribs.

another day i wrapped myself in plastic, so the jello was harder to press
I had to squeeze so hard to pop it
but you like a challenge.
so I added layer after layer
my skin was foreign to me by the end
the springy bounce gone to my touch
but then i couldn’t feel you
and it almost made it worth it.

you got mad at me
came to my side with a mission day after day.
until finally you brought an army
and smashed the layers away.

i asked why
you were grinning from ear to ear.
”you are not so special
my sweet jello dear”
i asked again “why?”
”this is torture for me, can’t you see?”
you seemed confused
as if it was your birthright
to crush me from head to toe.

I panicked every morning
scared you would come for what’s left of me.
I would tell myself it gets easier
less painful the more times I put myself under
but it never did
and it drove me insane.

and yet I love my jello skin.
an open book for all to see.
why should I turn to stone
to turn away eyes from me?
i may be easily shaken
but I am not so easily emptied
a well tipped to the brim with water

only disrupted temporarily
ever refilled
if you wait long enough.

3. i am a beast

I am a beast.
fur cuffing my wrist, nails filed to a point
gums gnashing, beating bloody
i roar over this land
my breast hot with unrequited rage

my name reverberates in the treetops
in echoing chasms
until the stars fall and the sun burns to a crisp,
you will hide from me.

i hide a wince
this decaying stump peeking through my bandage
i cannot find you
i have asked the moon and the stars for your name
and they only showed me your face.

I am the beast
but you escaped me
cut off my pride and left me
grappling,
un able to lick my wounds
this desperation a rot that needs cauterizing.
my five severed fingers do not make a hand.

i am not made for this strife
i am just a beast
touched by a god who stole my glory from me.

2. are you worthy of your honor?

I swung first at the sight of my enemy,
cut it down where it stood
and let it’s blood wash me rooted in my indignation.
A badge of honor to fall by my hand.

It waited for me
to hold my knife to it’s neck
and steal the whites of it’s eyes.
I pocketed it’s death as a sigh of relief, 
gratitude, 
that it did not fight back.

I cried at the sight.
my party made fun of me
sitting on a clifftop somewhere laughing through the scope. 
Laughing 
at the moment where I chose myself
at a fork in the road.

we are the world in small.
the meek shall not inherit the earth.
for the cowards will hold it from them.
there is no revolution without madness
for should you be proud
that if a body fall lifeless, 
you stand too far to catch her before she hits the ground?

i found no honor in survival,
bearing witness
to the distinctions of war.

1. what do i look like?

what is an intention perceived?
an act of love becomes an act of defiance becomes a symbol of 
hope or fantasy or rebellion
optics

eyes are the distracting sense
sometimes i wonder to pluck them out
and replace them with stones instead
how, then, is the intention perceived if they could not see?

or what if they were left as the only sense
distraction eternal
every intention an assumption
when in the end we’d wish not for stones but for the empty sockets which once held our dreams