for those who feel too much all at once

22 || poetry, prose, a place to rest my thoughts

[rienneva]

the age of 22

i try to separate from the space where my hips have widened and my stomach has pouched, the same space other women will occupy to condemn me to a mere trail of femininity. i do not like the purple rivers that run their stream up my sides, for i did not know they’d be so bright coasting up hillsides in the eroded paths of rolling fields, where i used to be able to bask up at the sun. these trails will remain desolate after the wakes of my fingers leave them, and their pockets will die as ghost towns, once full of life i cannot seem to find anymore.

a poem about 22 molding my body into someone i don’t recognize

[rienneva]

from my journal, july 7th 2023, 2:37am

[rienneva]

from my journal, july 6th 2023

[rienneva]

from my journal, may 3rd 2023

[rienneva]

these are the days that my fingers shake and reach for a joint they used to carry so familiarly / to only turn up empty against my awaiting lips / when i shampoo my hair twice a day / where my tears join the shower head’s pulse to my scalp / when i wonder if i was born of darkness / maybe it’s been inherited / when my mind wishes it could return to its pangea / when i notice the rain from distant clouds has streaks in rays, mocking the sun / when i keep the blinds closed until the moon rises. i say hello each night.

———

june 2023

[rienneva]

i’ve seen great women with cracking carved sideways smiles that are being held up by the promises that

            they’re real.

and while i do find myself at the same feelings of longing-- i find myself in the way i lose myself--

longing into a shattered mirror with my collapsing shell of a body with eye sockets that are gaunt in their feeble attempt at peering outwards,

            that will never see the day where the mirror reflects back any color,

i am not of the same greatness of those women.