Illustration by Olivia Twist
Renia White is a writer and instructor originally from Maryland. Her poetry can be found in The Recluse, Southern Indiana Review, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. She’s based in Brooklyn, NY where she’s at work on her next book-length project.
and when it came to pass that I could stomach
nearly every glimpse abaft this ragged hopscotch
—my way-making of meteoric precision—
I’d surmised: to travel, I’d have to span my own
heart’s continent—its rivets of fancy pudding shops
and cheap dumplings
languid landmarks erected out of neptunian necessity
uranian upendedness I’d invited along my walking
toward a star
I’d pulled toward me
by my wending
and it felt as if I was carrying something that looked
just like its name. if you knew it you knew and I walked
through the town having been everyone I’d already
exhausted.
I am on my -nth heart, I’d say.
could have arrived here subdued
soothed by a public garden
yet I’d chosen the darkest grift
brought myself to every fight I lost
could not find the foreign rift
moved along in riffs
of mastery and frailty
goodness on my lips
was king
king
knowing
we needn’t a king
off the shore of oneself again…
let me out right here—
radius from my own center
far enough to take it in
I’m meeting a man who
specializes in optics; we are
building a branch of understanding
*
among trees, I pretend I’m present
floral-dressed belligerence, half-scribbling
a coherent rendering of an ongoing storm
I lose my footing and press into the earth
where it gives–piercing the green
syntactically, whacking the cobblestone
with unpatterned glances
until I find a place to listen, a happening
that doesn’t see me coming, but can feel
-
READeven though no one can quite name it everyone knows that something is monstrously missing from me2018
-
READit takes only one time of writing something to call yourself a writer but how long until the title is revoked? just how much non-writing must one indulge in in order to be punishingly excluded? is it a week, a month, a year? or is it until all writing utensils are out of harm’s way, no longer kept at an arm’s reach, or worse, simply no longer reached for?Verdict
-
READintersectional feminist hands me a copy of how to talk about race
recites a land acknowledgment
to honor the native tribes
who have been displaced
to make space for the organic açaí bar we frequentIntersectional Feminist
-
READ
Your refusal might enrage the master. He might abuse you, and call you a parasite for refusing to do any work after eagerly swallowing the food last night. Become even more determined. Sit tight.Wild Grass