XX

There will be no hopelessness

There will be no bankruptcy of love

There will be no erasing of our labour in the middle of our song

This poem is having none of that

In this poem we are still becoming

Some days we are wee little things, our mouths too tiny to suck the juice out of the orange

And some days we're grown ass women who suck the fruit until we have bled it dry

Our hunger is so ripe no one can bear to look us in the eye

There is nothing linear about our becoming

Some days we're a roaring lion and some days we're the animal the lion's roar scares away

We're full of faith to know that His mercies are new every morning

But we're a lot broken to also fell like so is our pain