Brandywine No. 1

i blamed you/for this/for making me this way/for the vicious battle/i’ve been playing/back and
forth/with all the parts/i want to get rid of/but still remain/maybe that night/i took fire to my own flesh/desperate to find/the exact location of you in me/to try to burn you out
completely/enoughwasenough/i can’t lie/for a second before the stench excreted from my
pores/i felt relief

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bupropion 300 mg/temazepam 30 mg aripiprazole 5 mg/sertraline 100 mg/this disease of
mine/was birthed by you/by your decision/release me from the insidiousness of your
grasp/throat raw/choked out/fucking delirious/scratching flesh wounds

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you put me here/or was it the you in me/either way/i’m here/in this loony bin/for 4 nights/with a
rubber bathroom door/and no shoelaces/i was awakened every night with shock waves of
terror/bearing witness to my demons/liberating themselves/over the blank walls/counting sheep
never helped/i traced city scapes on the shower curtains

the first night/they wheeled me up from the ER/put me in the shower/and left me to rest/the
morning came/there were two rooms/one with a TV/the other with my bed/the food was
good/the company was crazy/the meds were wrong and i saw things i wish i never did/like
blood/and odors i never knew the human body could produce/they took my vitals
everyday/poked a lot of needles in my arms

most of them had children/that had been taken/some were going to or coming from a prison
cell/there was the lady who said she saw the light/and had/a womb full of Michael Caine’s baby/i
played a few rounds of checkers with a whitebody from Kentucky/he tried to get in my pants/but
mama/I didn’t let him/the youngblood/with the hazel eyes/302ed/and methed out of his
mind/tried it too

shawtygotabigbootyshawtygotabigbootyshawtygotabigbootyshawtygota

to be honest/this is a recall poem/just glimpses of remembrance/i think every day after was
pretty much the same/except the morning of the 4th day/when my roommate/Laura/tried tying a
towel around her neck after the french toast and muffins

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maybe i’ll write a poem for each one/of them someday/most of them were there before i
was/and were still there after i left/when i lay to rest/i recite their names/from under my
tongue/and contemplate if i can forgive you now/can i forgive the unwanted parts of you in
me/or the me/in its entirety/feast on my flaws and savor them for sustenance/every morning
around 4am/i decide i don’t know/but godgoddamn, i’m trying

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Home Sequence

i started collecting the scent of my own skin

 

 

++++++++i felt myself falling deeper and deeper into my own depths

++++++++++++a steady pour of devotion i kissed my own belly button as light spewed

 

++++++++++++from my every opening

 

there ain’t nothing you can take from me this my

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++home sequence, an uncontrollable spilling, yo skin
++++++++++++++++++++is love, yo collarbones is love, yo spine is love, i glide behind
++++++++++++++++++++the smell of my own breathing, embroidering a carnival of
++++++++++++++++++++shimmering skin, holding shelter there, orbiting the earth.

 

i sweat the pain off,

++++++++releasinggggggg.

 

 

++++++++lips pressed up against the clouds

 

++++++++laughing into a place i call home me/you/us this relic of mine belongs to no man

++++++++no passerby

++++++++nada

 

++++++++my kinda body sings

 

++++++++see me see me

++++++++see me see me

++++++++see me see me see me see me see me see me

 

++++++++++++++++i will be seen in my relentless joy gently, slowly, and then all at once

Doriana Diaz Doriana Diaz is a storyteller, shapeshifter, and sensitive spirit rooted in Philadelphia’s soulful rhythms. Doriana is the self-published author of Mami Calls Me Gabriella and Sunphases, both released in 2018. Her words have appeared in platforms such as; Nappy Head Club, Black Women Radicals, GROW/N Mag, Saddie Baddies, SYLA Studio, Black Girl Magik, We Heal Too, The Kraal, and many more! She believes words have DNA, they sit under our skin, erupting into soft and vivid explosions through our veins like lighting. Her writing is an exploration of cultural agency, archival documentation, and rhythms of resistance and expansion.