Aug. 27, 2023
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And the Breasts Win
By Kimberly Jae
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And the Breasts Win
By Kimberly Jae
I pray with shaky hands and speech that slurs itself through the
Crevices between my teeth
The sun is not welcome; it rises anyway.
I have said hello and goodbye to far too many
Sunrises
I have written too many poems about my death
I have tattooed combat across my sunburnt skin
Tucked joy and trauma alongside a random dollar in my bra
Blockaded myself into a cold tomb and yet
Sunlight directs itself in anyway
Thumb wrestles with blood cells over my sanity to the death
On dreary days when reruns are on repeat
and the poems attack
the words that chew through good intentions and
spit out the pits of people
never find rest
I imagine
On the day Death wins
It will be brisk out
Maybe Sunday
when the wind makes way for
celebration
And my fingers twitch and knuckles crackle under
The dust bunnies shining in the light
Indeed, I will be dancing
I will be found in magnolias
innocent
Run barefoot across the grass and cling
To the scent of outside and gumball flavored
huck-a-bucks
Swaying my hips
Breasts out
The Karens will curse my joy
And my Hamsa tipped nipples will ward
Them off
And the scars across my breasts
Across my brain
Make love, create music that
Replays
I refuse to have a care
Cares are heavy
This day, I am weightless
I refuse to be war
resist throwing myself on a grenade
To only burst into burnt petals of chrysanthemums
Personify roadkill and rigor mortis
Maybe I will not wait until the sunlight wins
To believe in good days
To believe in joy
To love the scars and brokenness that is my superpower
Snack on beignets and red flavored Kool-Aid
And when the time comes
Leave the music I made
For the little ones to pick up
Dance to their destiny
And when someone asks who I am
They will say I am love.
I am scars.
I am big boobs and soft belly rolls
I am lost with GPS
Snuggles and head rubs
But I still dance
My breasts still jiggle
Leaving smiles in their wake
Kimberly Jae
Kimberly Jae is an award-winning poet ranking among the top 30 slam poets in the world by PSI in 2018. Her publications include Poetry Foundation, Hawai’i Review, Tupelo Quarterly and anthologies including, In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers. Her manuscript, Baptism, was shortlisted for the 2021 Sexton Prize. She is the 2022 Visionary Arts Poetry Prize winner.
Image Description: An African American woman with curly red hair is leaning against a white background. She wears a slight smile, a navy-blue t-shirt with HAPPY written in rainbow colors and cat eyeglasses with rainbow rhinestones across the top and white rhinestones across the bottom.