I will no longer wreak havoc on you

I will no longer let you suffer because I was convinced beauty meant taking up less space

I will no longer let you confuse beauty with being sick and being sick with beauty

I will no longer starve you from not only food but happiness as well

But instead, I give you permission to thrive

I give you permission to take up space because your thoughts will always be more powerful than collarbones and thigh gaps

I give you permission to be authentic and not give a **** what anyone else thinks

I give you permission to truly live

I give you permission to love yourself

we caught eyes
in this convenience store
but
not because i fancied you.
i was piercing you
with my gaze
lips pursed, ready to spew
all of the hatred that swelled within me.
you were air and I was a balloon
but
you didn't expect something so hard
from someone so "soft"
because since i was a child
i was taught to speak only when spoken to
to do what men expect you to do
to find comfort in getting someone to fall in love with you
but i will not settle with
being defined by someone else,
not even you.
ive spent far too long holding my tongue
because that's what they expect women to do
they expect you to stay silent while they undress you
not just with their bodies
but with their words, falling like dominoes, spreading until the last one falls
but when will the last one fall?
when will I feel comfortable walking home by myself?
when will my clothes no longer be a form of consent?
when will the lines be paralleled?
when will birth no longer be punishment?
and when that day comes
when a boy tells my daughter what she should and shouldn't do,
his words like howling winds, destroying everything in their path,
she will have been made of stone.
and when he compares her to other girls, she will know wholeheartedly that she is a beautious being
and not because someone told her so.

so, here we are in this convenience store.
and i no longer hold my tongue.

This is where I grew up broken
And I still am
I'm trying to find my missing pieces

This is where I fell apart
I'm still not together
I'm searching for a way to snap things into place

Understanding is out of my reach
I walk with limited sight
Hoping that the next thing I stumble upon
Will be an answer
Will help me move forward

She rises and falls like a reposed breath
before an entire world's visage
in her encircled arms.
The incandescent glow of the stage
has an intoxicating quality to it,
the music being
something liquid, viscous.

As notes thrum in tender and soothing caresses,
her legs supple, twirl like petals
cascading under the weight of raindrops,
giving way to a lush surrender
steeped in a language of love and need.
Her very fire
and impassioned soulfulness
lifts her up above the crowd itself,
burning for all to see.

In this moment now
her timelessness enraptures me.
Another part of myself awakens to her grace
and renders me
gratefully whole.
A sense of euphoria slow dances its way
from her being to mine,
consuming every piece of my body
in a fiery bloom—
charging me with
a crackling, electrifying force
unlike my mere own.

I can see now
that this is what she was born to do—
to be on pointe, seeing everything.
Any instances of worldly fear
is left to the dying.
The rhythms of her old pains,
tribulations of past destructions,
are now buried beneath her feet.
And her radiant smile while she dances
still speaks to me gently—
that to be free
is to be wonderfully lost
in her waltz with destiny.

© BT

What is it that he celebrates today,
The oncoming of the frost or the passing of time?

Beneath his feet the water
Scintillates with a flame liquid -
Silver -
A transmutation of fire
Fuelled by the tears of his mother,
In whose waves he sailed to Sicily.

Bayreuth, Germany, looked like a frozen Sahara
With the local colors, and a pale-blue train
He had taken in Rome, at the "Stazione Termini.”

She: her body was carved in Napoli
He: his hair was planted in Carthage,
But both sought another knowledge
In Tübingen or perhaps in Konstanz.

She said, “I would sail from here to there,
Like you did from where you were,

But I would lose the rattle of your absence,
And that would be what makes all the difference”!
© LazharBouazzi, January 27, 2018

On a golden bedding
Spread for you by June -
Silken, fresh tedding
Beneath a sluggish noon .
Ah! Your fragrant silhouette
In a blink of my eye!

But we are in the winter
Now,
The time to surrender
To the stories that unfold
Of the children and the old
Adding cold to cold
Around a hearth of clay

As I look through the window pane
I glimpse a scarlet tourist train
Across the scintillating snow
Coloring the leaden no-show
That shut him out from the rainbow.

Oh! Your fragrant silhouette
On a summer wheat show!


© LazharBouazzi, January 21, 2018