Flesh & Babies – Becoming a WOMAN

I. BIRTH OF A WOMAN

Oh so you were looking for a baby mama

Blue mountains from my aunt’s bungalow, her womb swollen from having had “only a daughter”

The dog still weeps on the dusty path—dust red like my grandma’s glasses

The Caribbean swallowed Kingston but cannot digest it because we are all still screaming there

Just W O M E N just W O M E N

Salt runs dry in laces along my arms; I come from the depths of the depths of water, and of all things still.

I don’t know what you came looking for here. We, laceration. We, healed by swollen eyes.

The damp jungle has grown between my legs, the place where you once sought rest.

But no rest without dust.

Come lick the salt from my insides of courage.

II. BECOMING A WOMAN

Arrival

When you stop wanting every man’s shoulder you pass.

When you stop wanting every girl you see to be wild.

When you stop wanting to steal the baby from every swollen belly.

When you stop wanting another to become yourself.

When you stop writing only in the blood of flesh.

When you surrender to repair.

When you forget how to kill.

When you understand how to turn nothing into everything without stealing it.

When you finally trace your own escapes.

When you stop wanting to meet people without your clothes.

When you abandon your attempts at immortality.

When you spit out all you swallowed without freedom.

When you’ve been stripped bare and caressed with a new harvest.

When your organs and bones are in their rightful places.

When all those you longed for find stability with those you’d imagined for them.

When everything stops being predictable.

When the one who says he loves you free

Finds his prison.

When the one who loves you naked

Kneels before the altar.

When all the world’s knowledge of you

Is unmade with more or less lies.

When I stop saying it’s the others.

When I speak in “I” to every sentence.

When I embrace every pulse.

I will be a world.

Fleshy Lips

Welcome, grown-up.

Come and own your freedom.

Taut muscles of blood.

Wake up —hotel room—

With the one you think you love.

Oh, I know you love him, but it’s still too early—

A leap at eight in the morning.

Jazz club—Brussels—

With someone you could love.

You see it in his eyes—

You only want his eyes. Drunk, writing in bathroom stalls,

To the sound of live music.

You think of bringing the one you love here.

Too many thoughts for one cocktail.

Walking through the night—pre-furnished apartment—

With the one you could have loved,

But who will not hold on.

He didn’t bother waking you.

You tell yourself this has lasted too long,

Yet you’ll return once the last train has gone.

At home—coffee—you call

The one who loves you most.

And he doesn’t know.

Should he?

If he loves you for your freedom.

Hey, Papa,

How many double lives have you lived?

We’re both grown-ups now.

Do you see, though—

The space between us?

Aurélia Gervasoni
Writer

Aurélia Gervasoni (2003) is a poet and writer from Belgium, living across the world, losing herself in the waves, the moon, and sorority.

Her publications and visual art can be found here: https://linktr.ee/aurelia06