In The Middle of Me

Author
Juliana Freire
Content Warnings
None
Type
Poetry
Preview
“I keep feeling this emptiness…”
Posted
Jan 11, 2022 1:43 AM

i keep feeling this emptiness, keep writing this emptiness. my nothing where there should be skirts, pink, long hair, nails free of dirt

i feel it vaguely when they tell me “the witches are there, uncompelled, see?” “the witches are wild and like girls like them, stories with their own twirls”

there are those who say the witches are part of them - burnt and taken too far still courageous and proud enough to spar show teeth and nails and bones of a char

of course, they’re soon treated as magical with gold to justify, soon there are invented ancestral precedent, with planted incense and black cats they are thrown out, and that’s that

witchcraft was always a feminine noun pre-capitalist, to hurt and to heal now it is property of potter, gandalf and those who found. it is time to fill the empty with something to feel

nature doesn’t care with our imaginary constructions gender, sex, power, money; the false dichotomy functions to hide the same injustice. forget about the structures it matters only the people, the smiles, futures and sutures

in my eagerness to be natural in the wild i almost forgot gentleness it is not only teeth and rend in the exile it is hands and hair and loveliness

i am not saying it to uplift the pure skinny or white but the tenderness, sensibility and kindness are virtues that we forget are inert to this humanity, dumb and trite full of love, truth, and stupid ties we can never lose

so come, girls, show your claws and your hearts fight the wrong and evil and dance, embrace, kiss and twirl never forget your importance in this great world of parts