Endure.
A Medicine Song
To listen to the medicine song in this poem click on the link below.
Endure
This pain stings. It stabs and pricks. It is a searing burn. What can I do with this fleshly thorn of mine? It is nearly 3-years old now, and comes whenever I am aroused not always, but often, it protrudes and drags and stretches towards hell, a bulging fireball stalks my pelvic floor. My mind searches for answers while ruminating, Rumi, ruminating in agony. I search the human web, look high and low, and scan the halls of medicine. My gynecologist says it's "a bartholin cyst some women get it we don't know why." What do you mean you don't know why? The mind tries to find doors of escape, doors that can save me or damn me, anything to flee this maddening torture. My lover cares for me. She cooks me homemade chicken noodle soup and draws me salt baths and buys me flowers and says my body is the most beautiful she’s ever seen in the arms of my lover i find comfort and rest in the arms of my lover i am safe enough to go within and in the darkness of my soul, a medicine song starts to play, a light flickers a voice speaks: What shames have you been carrying that are not yours? What shames from generations past, and unqualified fuckboys do you store in your vulva? Let them go, child, let them go. You must let them go. A turmoil, A cyst, an extra layer of skin hangs from me like a lynching. I keep listening for the medicine song and I chew ginger and schedule a surgical consult with my doctor and I wail and I weep. I wail and I weep I wail and I weep and I keep listening for the medicine song. Suddenly a pattern forms and through a glass darkly, I see how being constantly told that your body is ugly can eventually form the perfect ecosystem for an impression, a holy demon that lights your glands on fire. What can one do to appease the monsters? Bayo Akomolafe says that when I meet the monster, I must anoint his feet. James Baldwin says, "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." Thich Naht Hanh says "call me by all my names so that I might open the doorway to compassion." I carry these words, these spells round my neck, I, shake my shaker and bang my drum, singing, singing, chanting, chanting till my voice becomes balm, becomes holy water that anoints and soothes, this holy monster. All mantras manifest into form. "Keep your legs closed and your books open" quickly descends into fate if you're not careful: A blockage now descends out of my body from years of repression, and takes her revenge. Rage, rage against the 1500-year old claim that the mind is separate and better than the body, Rage, rage against the toxic scripture that says that Man is superior to Woman, Rage, rage, my body, rage. Howl, yelp rage, and teach. I know even in this pain, you teach I can hear your medicine song: "Wrestle, Chloé, wrestle with me," "Wrestle Chloé, wrestle with me. Wrestle with pain, wrestle with the monster, wrestle with me. Rumi, ruminate till you find Rumi dancing in the center of it all Rumi, ruminate till you find the eye of the hurricane Rumi, ruminate till you become the dance even in your suffering. Rumi, ruminate, with me. Chloé, Wrestle with me. wrestle with me. Rumi, ruminate, Chloé. wrestle with me. wrestle with me. Wrestle with shadow, Chloé and wrestle with Darkness, and you will find it is I, Darkness, that gives rise to the Light. A great teacher, am I, My name means "With suffering." Compati Compati My name means "With suffering." My name is Compassion. I am patience, I am passion, I am pain, I am patience, I am passion, I am pain, Chloé, wrestle with me, I am patience, I am passion, I am pain, And I endure.