ASHUNDA NORRIS

My Therapist Says I'm Mourning the Loss of An Undead Sister

& the grief wrecks me a bride of caskets stabbing
heated cotton fields my sister's manic curses slice through
my father's prayers mid request & what else is there for god to do

except initiate the remainder of a demise
she demented a shell a dead mind church fire shut up in bones

my therapist's office is an inferno of lies i pretend to
never drink alone rosé on breath two hours before work
& who can rescue other folks' kids when my body is no longer

my own & stuck in georgia planted to a sofa mouth glued tight
watching ray followed by dreamgirls then why do fools fall

in love on repeat over caked coffee & burn toasted pecan pie
after the failed intervention my father escapes to the carport
eating tears my mother towards the phone to gossip her pain away

two days later i'm on a plane to london no time for weeping
who can afford the years it takes to give sad what it actually deserves

the part of me willing to survive crushes itself to a side
where the light bleeds tongue & imagine what it must be like
to crawl into the gates of hell no one recognizes

but my sister's past & a suffering i know what it means
to not last & then recover i'm a million ants overrun with gloom
the locked chalice aching for a tender hand

It Ain't Deep So Don't Panic

I live on Blck poems
& rosé

treat me refined
one time I thought

I should reside in a mental institution
tattoos remind me I can feel

like a sorry gazelle unable to strut
down new york subway ramps in stilettos

fck post modernism if
commentary on my body still exists

my hair cut off fire red proves
I still want to be alive maybe

I forgot to squat before
pissing on a Parisian street corner

I hate to break it to you but
failed marriages are underrated

the museum staff ignores me until
I stand too long in front of Basquiat

I've never told my mother
about the abortion

at receptions I stand on the wall
wait for women to see what I can't say

I search for lunch ideas on the internet
when I'd rather be in Temecula I mean Italy

is where I left my burdens while
my sister overdosed on the voices

I hold my chest to the sun
listen to myself breathe

my breasts are pinched in
diamond heat therapy

goes well when I say I am done
with survival jobs & family woes

I be in checkered pajamas with a shot of
jasmine over lavender bed sheets

why, I'm perfect at meekness
nails as armor

    Ghazal for the Lush

I make a bargain with my drinking migrate with comets
blasting rivers in the sky & you can have another

ah I do that in my dreams no slick shit abandon
the gospel of self just to have another

abandon gospel self for a hallow shell
& council of everyone all to have another

a hallow shell fragmented over wild lips
fragile inches from the god of myself so yes another

over wild lips pour unicorn blood genteel gush
I'm a weak tied cobra's neck just for another

pour unicorn blood between the longest night
& a new day let me ache for the memory of another

in the longest twilight I am a wolf waiting to stop
baring its teeth at every turn let me have another

I am a wolf waiting a brute of feeling an anchor
witched & channeling haunts for the sake of another

this anchor of brute feelings jingled & bullheaded
crawls the heels of my skin I want another

jingled & bullheaded I flare up a cannibal
begging in defiance of yesterday's choke give me another

I a bullheaded cannibal settles into a chained
demand a face of tornadoes giving in to my want for another

a chained tattooed siren sits below me the sky is bone
go on & say it with ya chest, Shunda. drink as praxis. no breaks

self portrait as drunken night in undergrad

even when the q juice
rams itself through my liver

I keep seeing
my high school drama teacher

at the door collecting money
handing out drink tickets

whole of my slim body
ready to be fucked split sideways in ricky's dorm room

he had to go & say you all grown up now
his voice a slimed toad in my ear

quicksanded ricky right out my mental my sister
always saw bile between his begging eyes her friend

a trapped threshold loose in his grimy paws
rumor had it he fingered a girl(s)

in the folds of his classroom
between ungraded monologues & his favorite stapler

I hex him here
a poem

a law
built to unbind Black cherubs from fulsome fangs

Ashunda Norris is a fierce feminist, filmmaker, poet and teacher living in Los Angeles. Her honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, the New York State Summer Writer's Institute and a residency at The Lemon Tree House. Ashunda’s film work has screened internationally, including Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda. A proud alumna of Howard University and Paine College, the artist also holds MFAs in Poetry and Screenwriting. Ashunda’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in La Presa, The Adroit Journal, Bayou Magazine, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.