“Womanhood” and other poems by Amara George Parker

womanhood

womanhood did not sneak up on me
when my thighs were stained with first blood 
                                that arrived
so unexpected
so connecting

it didn’t happen when hormones sprouted lumps and bumps
that others 
stared at
                         and touched

it was not given to me 
nor did I grab it
in the first instance 
of fucking

or when lovers loved me
or advantages were taken

or if I shaved
or didn’t
… spoke softly
… drank wine
… eased someone’s pain.

I felt 
      it
swelling,
a fierce instinctive roar 
woven through rivers that 
cut their way 
through the innards of the earth, 
a carved path hewn
for us 
and I 
                took it
declared it mine
                claimed it –

this new world 
I was so certain
wouldn’t swallow me up.

under the covers

I know where the monsters in this house dwell
and they’re not under the beds
but rather,
in them.

I see them at night’s dawn
with crooked soul
and vile perversions.
as they creep past the creaks in the floor
and into my bed.

Previously published in inkspace magazine, Editor Katherine Hopkins. No longer in print


night eyes

trust your night eyes, child.

there will be no comfort here

no fires around which to gather and dance.
​
we are alone.
​
healing cuts
and we lavish crimson blood on fresh snow.
our tread falls softer,
and we fold our bodies down to bow and kiss the earth with the 
strange tongues of our mothers,
wyched words from her womb only our bellies understand.
​
as I wake,
     I know I am alone.
​
I look up to see the stars have moved and spun the heavens on their 
backs.
​
winter has killed the leaves and the trees have drawn their spirits 
in to nest
inside their core,
leaving the heavens
​
untouched
​
the moonlight stark and uncompromising.
​
the winter hag has stripped me
and now
I stare back at my own reflection
that hangs from every tree,
until she rasps that she is done with me,
that I have cut away the rags of comfort
and my outline.
​
my core
is clear,
raw.

I see those long fingers of the earth stretched toward the stars
and head for home,
whole, unshadowed,
awake in the cold,
and terribly,
nakedly
aware
and unafraid
of who I am.

(Adapted version first published in She Who Knows magazine, 
now called Aeva. Editor, Isabella Lazlo)


IMG-4713 (1)Amara George Parker is a London-based writer, with work published in literary magazines Spoon Knife, Sufi Journal, i n k s p a c e, Aeva, Voice of Eve, She Who Knows, and Earth Pathways diary. As a queer disabled writer, she hopes her work offers readers an inclusive perspective. 

 

Amara’s website is here.

%d bloggers like this: