Girls Can Rage Too

I keep telling myself the garage can wait.

The boxes stacked like vertebrae

aren't willing to be touched yet.

Even the broom in the corner

leans—it's tired of asking.

The air smells faintly of dust and rancid grease,

nostalgia wrapped in misery,

an accident begging release

but not today.

The novel at my bedside glares.

The heroine Begs I follow her path,

tilts her head from the dog-eared page.

She demands I follow the place she buried her rage

beneath a heaping mound of dirt,

the secret held in her hands—a hot stone burning.

I should follow her into the earth

but not today.

My painting in the corner glares—an evil stare,

colors pleading to be born.

Paint spots spattered everywhere—

unfinished, unrepentant, incomplete.

It waits

for my hands to return,

for the moment I stop pretending

and listen.

I could resurrect the brush,

uncage the restless creature beneath,

Exhume my shame

Rid the blame

but not today.

Instead, I stand

in the burning core of it all,

hearing the calls ping and ricochet

like misfired bullets.

Booms like thunder before the strike.

This

this is its own kind of madness—

the pause before the next becoming,

the breath I owe myself

before haste steals my face

Impaled by the weight of clarity

I fight the disparity

while I align with the beats of my own tortured heart,

but not today

But not today