How To by Francesca Block (most popular novels of all time TXT) 📕

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trying to shelter them from 9/11

trying to teach them to live love instead of fear

what was wrong with me?

jealous of your hair your voice your strength the way

you spoke to my man

even as you gave me pastel thong underwear

decked with bows

and told me people like me should have babies

to make the world a better place

titania why

should i be surprised

at what happened?

even the greatest of cities have fallen

to their knees when fear rules

love

and they have been

temporarily at least

reborn

the face

at first your face frightened me

your face was the face of the girl

i’d always wished to be

your face

i thought wrongly

was the face of the girl who never felt pain

if i could have worn a mask

it would have been your face

if i could have had one wish at fourteen

it would have been your face

if i could choose between the gift of words

and your face

i would choose the latter

your face looked the way i felt inside

i understood gossamer and rose petals

light on shallow water

mossy glades and the stained glass

of butterfly wings

but my face was wrong

not mine

not what i felt inside

and you came up to me with that face

and i was afraid

and then you said, thank you

thank you for that story

it was the one about my botched nose job

my acne scars

my face-hate

you looked at me and your eyes had golden

rings like lakes made from compassion’s tears

you came to my house to write with us

you said you were a model

i tensed at the word

afraid of it as if you had said you were

a dog catcher or a cigarette manufacturer

but you brought gifts

bags of silk dresses

sea shells

cherries

your open heart

your wounds

they made you even more exquisite

you said sweet words

sweet as the cherry shape of your mouth

you came again and again

you said kind things to all of us

you brought cushions and fairies and goddesses

you called me part of your star

i look at you sitting on my couch

writing in your journal

your sheath of gold now twisted up

onto your head

with one flick of your wrist

cat eyes blink and kitten nostrils flare

fairy chin and cheekbones

a dryad’s petal lips and eyelids

thank you for taking away my fear

we are not so different little cat goddess

fairy woman

wood nymph

star sister

valentine

my friends stitched it up with golden thread

like a red

satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too

roses and charms and red candles

milagros to repair the real one

they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away

a pretty pin cushion

a piece of mexican folk art

a hundred beating poems left unanswered

like a thing to wear around the neck

they said you must heal we will protect you

but i sat weeping at the computer

forging ahead anyway

with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest

it knew that it had needed to be torn

so that it could recognize and receive

the hundred kindnesses

traveling across three thousand miles

at the speed of light

a storm of petals and beautiful words

and tiny hearts to keep it

company

the three graces

the three graces, sera, sukha and yxta, came to bless

my home

they lit one golden candle

made by brooklyn witches

and three black candles

made by midwestern witches

the gold one was to warm

the black ones were to ward off grief

grief had ventured into my house

tentatively and with his eyes closed

he would not sit on the bed but went instead

into the backyard

the lily pond disturbed him

though the roses were worse

and the picket fence made his skin crawl

grief’s face was calm

his beard was trimmed

he wore a black bandanna on his head

he looked well-rested and composed

though he had once held a dead baby

in his small hands

and fallen to his knees in tears

before another woman

but tonight grief watched me crying in the garden

and asked me to accept what i could not understand

and told me he needed his space

he waited until i said, go now

and then he got up and ran through the house

disappearing into the night forever

i went to my computer and emailed all my friends

help me, i said

he has abandoned me, i said

not realizing i had banished grief

sometimes i see him through the sliding glass doors

that lead from my bedroom to the garden

his profile drawn by the shape of the dark trees

the head of a satyr

but the black candles still burn

and the roses keep blooming irrepressible

grace dances with me in the front room

grief is not welcome

here

a half imagined history: for o

1970

you are born to a girl

a boy inside a girl

i am sitting in front of my teacher with my hands

on her big belly

feeling the baby kick

1975

you want a penis so much it makes you cry

i have cut off all my hair in a bad pageboy

i have braces and pimples

i am grinning as if i am happy

1982

are you starving yourself?

i am

1985

you are running and jumping

powering through so you don’t have to think

about what you are not

but it is who you really are

you just don’t believe it yet

just as i don’t believe i am beautiful

i am wearing pink and black creepers from london

my hair is bleached blond

i stomp around the campus searching for someone

but all i find are the bronze sculptures in the garden

1986

what have you lost, darling? my dad dies of cancer

1989

are you still in hospitals?

are you drawing out your sorrow?

my first book is published

i wear a sheer lace blouse and a kimono fabric skirt

my boyfriend leaps around the room flirting

with everyone

we will break up in a few months

it doesn’t sound so bad but i won’t kiss anyone new

for years

1993

you are in manhattan

i kiss a scorpio and move to the desert

1998

where are you now?

i am getting married

we will divorce a few years later

it’s worth it to have our children

2000

i have one

2002

i have two

2007

i am