Somewhere in a darkened room,

A woman sits lost in sorrow.

She thinks of her mother and her mother’s mother,

Both long dead, buried in a distant land.

Their voices would rise and fall,

Weaving conversations that she still wore

Wrapped around her like a shawl.

They painted bones as they talked,

Bones that belonged to their mothers,

Painted them black like the night in which they fled

Painted them black like the rage they dared not show

Painted them black like the death of all they had loved.

On these bones they wrote

Wrote in the language of women hidden from men

Words that spoke the secrets of their lives

Named the children they had never held

Sang the songs their voices could not raise

Celebrated their beauty that was never revealed.

These memories warmed her, yet she wept.

She had no children, no lover, no friends.

Just herself alone in this desolate room.

Who would paint her bones?

From mother to mother to mother.

And so because of this, she cried.

Who would paint her bones? She had never learned these words of magic.

She was not a mother, would never be a mother.

Alone in a foreign country.

laughter is bitter

when you know the right questions

only after the fact

the trips made the operations performed

everything proclaimed a shining success

laughter is bitter

when returned at home

you struggle to find your way

life harder now than even before

laughter is bitter

let others go about their lives

they see what they want

this is nothing new

laughter is bitter

I’ve always known

and so I offer you honey

when I pour you a cup of tea

Words fall like stones

Catch them in your hand

Fingers bleed from flinty edges

Drop them to the ground

Walk away

The words hard still but changed

You marked in turn