Some Dorothy Allison

“We all nourish truth with our tongues
not in sour-batter words that never take shape
nor line-driven stories bent to skirt the edge
of our great exhaustion, desire, and doubt.
We all use simply the words of our own lives
to say what we really want,
to lie spent on our lovers,
put teeth to all we hate,
to strain the juice of our history
between what has been allowed
and what has always been denied,
the active desire to take hold of the root.”  


“I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them"
The Women Who Hate Me Poetry 1980-1990
-Allison ...

"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."
-Muriel Rukeyser

Poem

This week, a 5 year old boy I know will leave Shelter. I will never forget him.

Somewhere, beyond all that
spins, a young man is standing
motionless, not a ripple near

He can barely speak
about the altitude,
the caverns,
the Terror

The time he lifted a boy in shards
from a jagged rock, tearing teeth
from his torso, placing a palm
over the strange stare in his eyes

Mound by mound, they climbed
around the edges of the canyon
to the very top

Never again to cower
in the dark