I used to stay at home afraid of what my body
did beneath its surfaces, of my neighbors penetrating
me with pitchforks, of the flowers that bloomed
in my underarms wilting, of people noticing the rotting
smell from my blood that I used to celebrate with every
cracked yellow moon. I traded my soft skin
for smooth skin. I traded warm eyes for pupils
like bullets in his mouth, and his throat, and his stomach
burst into cement. June found me walking
down the street and I had never seen so many eyes.
I was crushed under the weight of them. an eye weighs
only an ounce but the multitude was enough to pull
my stomach like teasing a plug from the bathtub,
enough to bring me down. I was low to this place
where I would make any friend I could who would close
his eyes for moments, but when his eyes closed, his hands
moved and there is a terrible weight in that too. my legs
opened and at least a million butterflies burst
from inside me. I had been with insect not nudge
of child, and they swarmed his hands, his eyes, the rest
of him away. I haven't seen them since. I haven't seen
myself since. my blood runs cold. I leave my house as
often as I like. I topple the figures of men after I blink
them to stone. the sidewalks are covered in rubble
and I don't even bother with clothes or sobriety
these days, dragging my body down these summer
streets looking for my children in the sky.
XANDRIA PHILLIPS grew up in rural Ohio and received her B.A. from Oberlin College in 2014. There she studied Creative Writing and Africana Studies. Her poetry explores Blackness in international and American contexts, queerness, displacement, and Atlantic myth. Much of her writing is about processing both personal and historical tragedies that people of the African Diaspora experience. She is currently a student of poetry and a teacher of composition in Virginia Tech's MFA program.
Read more of Xandria Phillips' poetry in Issue 2, Vol. 1, Spring 2015.