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When I was pulled from my mother’s womb, I choked back the salt of sweat and bound myself up in sinew. A child born unto white sheets and dotted with her own mother’s blood, I was a sacrifice made in the form of flesh, offered up to any hungry god that could swallow. And so, they came. Men, like gods, flocked to the scent of golden opportunity, these bright eyes and brown skin, supple and preening. Passing the dish, they ran messy lips and worn out eyes across me until I grew barren, my legs wired open and my mouth always slack with a sigh. I learned to be quiet, to cook myself medium rare before their hands could drag me down to the flame. Memorizing the twist of their wedding ring fingers, I have retreated so far within myself I have become a hallucination. I have pushed myself to the recesses of my own mind, I have become my illness, I have become my past. In an effort to become pure, I have become nothing.

onniki pooka, afterbirth

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before the war broke out on this child body, I imagine three men pitching a sign that read “land for sale,” what they thought to be an empty plot, was the exact space I was cultivating my fruits, feelings, and fertility when all of the miners, ranchers, and colonizers came, they fought over what tool to stick in flesh first, the pick, the plough, or the pistol, when I screamed out for my mother, they struck gold and concluded that when a girl hurts, there is always opportunity

onniki pooka, lot

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They shook me until fruit spilled out, rattled bones until I produced papayas and pomegranates, until my pores opened up like pepper, spilling seeds They took me until I cracked like melon rinds and weeped cardamom, I became hard and glossy around the edges, inedible and repulsive to the touch Yet, they compared puckered breasts to meals their mothers cooked back home, but how dare they dine at a table they refused to set, and eat from dishes they’ve never washed, how dare they eat what they have poisoned and not fall ill?

onniki pooka, young bride cooking

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It wasn’t until I was eight years old that I realized what men wanted; they desired to pick plums from the bottom of my back, to sink fingers deep between flesh and bone and fish out what little comfort they could find they wanted something new and old at the same time, something fresh to the world but old to pain, weathered from too many “bend overs” and “open ups” yet bright eyed and slobbering with the prospect of mature love they wanted cabinets full of food and no one to fight when they came hungry and thieving

onniki pooka, this kitchen is empty

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heaven is for white girls, for girls who can articulate, for girls who tighten up their jaw, for girls who can say their alphabet backwards, and for girls who walk tight ropes and say “yes, daddy,” heaven is for those eggshell girls, for those vine grown girls, for those low hanging girls, and for those girls who swallow two pennies and spit up nickels, heaven is for girls with less ribs, for girls with empty stomachs, for girls who eat dirt for dinner and don’t ask for seconds, and for girls who speak the language of hunger, heaven is for men and god, and only for girls who don’t know the difference between the two

onniki pooka, what I learned in church last summer

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men are not predators, men do not stalk prey to feed or kindle fire, there is no shelter in their bite, not cunning nor sly, they are beasts, burdens, and bastards; ever snarling and defensive with the knowledge they are unimportant, they bite to draw blood, but are too weak to swallow

onniki pooka, predators are necessary

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learn to fortify those awful feelings, build yourself, lay bricks, construct yourself in a way only you know, your unraveling comes on terms written by your own hand

onniki pooka, positive affirmations for a negative time

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my grandmothers have carried the weight on their backs long before they knew what it meant to sin - they have criss-crossed rope around their torsos to bring wood to fire and have sharpened flint on their two front teeth, the women in me have taught me how to bite

onniki pooka, plains

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swallows come with springtime mourning, watershed morning, fern berries and spitting competitions, burying ourselves in the sand our mothers sold, castles built on shaking bedrock, tombs engraved with father’s nails, the sun always comes too soon, his son always brings morning, mourning

onniki pooka, ramblings

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there’s chaos in this body, there's milk matter in the bone marrow, and I wonder; have you ever felt a reluctant tongue replace the memories of your childhood - fifth grade adrenaline runs cold in the neighbor’s boxers and there’s pieces of yourself left on the baseball diamond, here, a strand of hair and the thread of a sock at each base your mother buys your first tube of lipstick, age nine now there's pearlescent puberty spread thick, now you've been bleeding before your body knows how, the paraffin wax and high shine gloss are the pistols in your floral print panties, cocked, safety off, he always shoots first and those mother goose rhymes are stuffed up inside of you, keeping you from going hungry

onniki pooka, fieldhouse

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You will never forget the quilt that was wadded up between your two swollen knees, “it’s better this way,” the arch of your back becoming an aqueduct for sweat, ache, spit, ache, semen, ache, and ache, and ache. You have spent a millennia pretending that to be torn is only two steps away from being whole. When he cries out “I’m here,” you have forgotten what it was like to hurt, you have forgotten what it was like to wait, you have forgotten yourself in the pockets of his jeans. There’s a porch that creaks with unmentionable weight as he comes home from supper. He enters, kisses his wife, fixes himself a bowl of cereal. I couldn’t fill him. His wife never expects that his breath smells like cunt, he fumbles with a tic tac. I’m seven years old, I spell out “cunt” in the sand, maybe I misspell it with pebbles a few times, but I’m learning quick. Smart girl, tidy girl, belly rumbling kind of girl. Legs spread too quick girl, says “ouch” girl, doesn’t fuss girl. Spits when she’s told to swallow girl, swallows to know how it tastes girl, brown girl. I have been many girls, but I have never once been this girl. There’s a staircase, this isn’t my house, but I know how it smells. There’s food in the oven, the crisp skin of a salted bird. My ankles are sore, tied in knots to cheap wooden posts, there’s knives in my belly and a song in my head. Creak, creak, creak. I have learned to tell the men by their weight, they lumber, sneak, trip, and thud themselves to where I lay. Slink, slither, stutter into me, putter until you stall and then push yourself some more. Here, an altar is erected between two brown thighs, I am slut, I am danger, I am child.

onniki pooka, memory recollection #21

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there, pink lines and swollen puffs there, you have chosen to ignore your daughter’s plight; wet, messy, unrefined with tissues stashed beneath her bed frame there, origami folds of spotted red and iron brown there, you turn worn heels into her cracking scalp, you are better off barren, you are better off pretending

onniki pooka, going unnoticed

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who has loved the web between gum and tongue? who has kissed the ridge of a red roof mouth? who has desired a girl called rage?

onniki pooka, estimates

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staring at the veins on the flip side of a swollen tongue is staring into time itself, the passage of death and rebirth in a red cell platelet, throbbing blue in the brine beam reflect of yellowed teeth, extract the pearls of my very being, pleasure yourself in the carnage of a root canal, a twist of your wrist and I am entitled to gagging, it is the uvula you crave, but it is me you need

onniki pooka, surgical steel

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they wrapped themselves in shower curtains and begged me to dine, fishing line fingers and blown glass eyes, tying me together with yarn they pulled from the back of my throat, polyvinyl chloride bound the wet parts of this vessel together, spit replaced glue in their paper mâché, creating craft replicas of a mouth they loved so tenderly, seeing doll parts where I saw red

onniki pooka, paper cuts

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limp body spread from plate edge to plate edge, wrists tied to fine china, a fork stamped between thighs which ache with tender lacerations, I am desirable and welcome under eyelids heavy with sleep, your hunger predates morality

onniki pooka, potluck

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momma told me small girls can’t hurt this way; I’m too young for the pain. how could she lie to me, does she not know my conception was the result of her own suffering? the egg kissed sperm with the intent to hurt

onniki pooka, positive

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