PUNK POETRY: Two Stalls Down From Kim by Vale Prosper

It’s possible that every woman has cried the same 29 flavours and varieties of tears ranging from petty sea salt and dark chocolate to guttural blue raspberry wound / probable that our voices were trained by the same wounded Mother or lofty Father / our guts chemically subdued then hardened in exposure / the hopeful intended twist is one to weakness / to make decorative trees with no roots / all flowers / we sort this out at group therapy: / sleepovers / quilting circles / bathroom sinks where the drunkest of us offers her lotion / her perfume / her balms / says try this it actually works / here’s what you gotta do / smell sexy with me / you’re so pretty, like, really / I lick the collective memory of middle school crushes / the desperation for beauty / off the strawberry lip gloss some of us had / others of us borrowed / we all used / and feel Eve is here too / it’s been a while since I swam in the deep end of girlhood all chummy with the blood of shaving scrapes / first times / myths / but once you learn the language of eye contact / eyebrows / a hundred intonations for that blessed word /   girl   / there’s nothing she can say / bemoan / ugly-weep behind a stall that we can’t, / from next door or standing at the mirrors / or sitting outside waiting for her to come back— / I don’t care if you were a horse girl / a Warriors cat girl / the new girl figuring out the Moon and tides in your veins for the first time in your transcendent life / or waning away in a crescent / (wherever you are in the gender-fucked biosphere) / or the pick me girl who’s throwing all of us all the way under the bus / that includes you, by the way, / baby girl, please / those tire treads are squishing your heart into the grain / — understand. I love you too. / Sister said Joy is coming / and honestly / good for her / it’s about damn time she did. 


--Vale Prosper

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