My Covenant

Let me tell you a secret love, since this world is made of them-

The yellowing notes at the bottom of my pajama drawer are titled MY PROMISE and DEAR GOD from grade school.  

I used to be a troublemaker you see

the counselor pulled me aside i gasp-cry and she tells me to “take a deep breath.”

Go cry in a bathroom stall, eight years old hide your blotchy cheeks from passing stares.

god forbid you’d giggle- tease him, but never mind he called you a moronic bi-

Come an apology, a flower, a stained reminder of your smallness, MY PROMISE, tilted letters and misspelled hebrew are some sort of broken solace- I want to know what it’s like to tell someone how to breath.

Nine years old I wrote MARK IF you have

Disobeyed

Not listened to someone

Gotten mad for a very small reason

God asked me, why did you get mad for a very small reason?

I said, how can I be told to breath from lungs when I’m just a rib?

I found god in muffled murmurs and silent bedrooms

I lost god when I didn’t get what I wanted

God, I want you to see my tree veins and blue spine, peach snow body and ripple-rivered arms.

I’m your afterthought bankrupt debtor, love when I’m old enough I’ll pay you back with open knees and modesty smiles-

Cause I want my every moment to taste like poetry, I want to feel firetruck red when you tell me I’m pretty, I want you to tell me I’m pretty, ask me to dance with you.  

I know what I’m doing. A friend told me how to make a boy want to kiss you in a car when we were eleven. I’ve been worried I don’t look thin enough in this shirt for 15 years, I’ve ran dry-throat knife stomach miles for you, love, all for you,

I want to be that woman. I want you to make me. I want you to possess me with those eyes, for I do not possess myself… I speak poisonless words from flower teeth and with this snake tongue i will check off your boxes, this is

my

Covenant.

I crave to eat the apple that shields my child face. drink- swallow Eden and kiss reality like it’s my new lover, reign with my ocean hipped sisters-

But for now-

I’ll wait for you, love.

I’ll sit by my bedside and worship a god who they say put me second.

I wish someone told me that

the day man is mother is false day.

Tell me something I haven't heard, love.

Tell me I am made for bigger things.

And if you cannot tell me that, I will tell myself

and someday I hope that’ll be enough.

by MIRA WARD