Fire, Again

I want you to fear me

I hope that in my next life I'll remember 
how lucky I was to be her daughter
if for some unfair reason 
we’re ever reborn far from each other.

When I was a little girl, I tried to be just like her:
smart, clever, neat
she put my hair in pigtails
draped me in Gymboree dresses.

But I was a wildfire compared to her
angry and erratic
throwing things around my bedroom.
Hard to know how with her loving guidance
I'd turned out like this.

Well I'm older now
and still a loose cannon
though that old fire 
has long since died on my lips.
My dreams of being a suburban housewife died
before I had a chance to wake up.
But still, I’m tame, always smiling.
You could pass me on the street
and believe that you could love me.
I could make good window dressing.

And the tears I cry
they don't come easy
when I'm here on the train
I’m here, I’m here but I'm all alone.
What does it feel like
to be in a new country and have no power 
but to love it and know you want to stay.

I could count over the years
the teachers, the bosses I’ve had
it’s so easy to kill a little girl
without leaving a mark on her body.
I’ve had delicate parts of me killed so easily.

They’d never believe that once I was all fire
but it’s true.
They’d never believe the pain in my throat
from screaming, from aching
the tingling in my palms, my fingertips
clamoring for a little taste of the old violence
but it’s true.
It’s all true.
 
My birth chart, still, is all fire.
On a cold day, if I’m angry
that darkness, those storm clouds
the humming and buzzing between my tongue and teeth
a little thirst for blood
I can feel it rising again with me
that Sagittarius Aries energy.

I want to be on fire, again.

Anyone who’s ever had power over me
casual as anything
I think I could make them afraid for their life.
It’s just that it’s getting hot outside
and when I lie on the couch with a fan like this
I stop thinking and just start feeling. 

Through a poison flick of the silver tongue 
they think they can talk down to me
and I guess they’re right.
I guess they can.

But I won’t always be this desperate.
It won’t always be this way.

God tells you to remember, and I think it’s true
in the darkest moments, there’s still a light coming
and I’ve been patient, I’ve been praying for it
on my knees in fact and begging for it.

I want to be on fire, again.

It took me years to understand
what happens to some, the slavering, the hunger
the second they see a young girl.

It’s not so wrong, they would say
it’s only natural to want to hold her 
a flower in their palm of their hand
and crush her down to her essence:
perfect bones, and they slide like silk
ashes to ashes
and dust to dust again.

It’s just that I’ve tried so hard not to break
I tried so hard to be good
I made excuses, I tried to understand.
I did the yin metta meditation
sent every monster loving kindness.

I breathed the cool air, I cleansed myself in water
I laid my dead petals down in the earth
but it’s never been enough.
I’m unlucky every time I cross one of their paths
they try to crush me down again.
Nothing will ever be enough.

I want to be on fire, again.

I have a little list of men
who I’d like to make, just for a second, cower at the sight of me.
I have a little list of lions
and quite a small glass enclosure.
It’s sad, you might say, to see such a beast so reduced
they might sleep all day
they might pace until they lose their minds
they might cower into their once-magnificent bodies
whine when they see me turning the corner.
But I'm not against a little justified cruelty
and in fact, I’m not sorry.

I just want to be on fire, again.

I just want you to fear me.
I just want to enter your bedroom in the middle of the night
I just want, as darkness falls
for you to know, somehow, I’m coming
and for you still to lie in bed, immobilized.
I just want to clamber on top of you
dig my nails into your neck
feel your softness, your fleshiness
the tender animal parts that in fact, you have too
you just never imagined I’d reach.

But in these dreams, I have.

I just want to bare my teeth on bare skin
suck out a little bit of your fear
lap it up, sweet, like wine
feel the taste of it on my tongue.

I don’t want to be such a young girl again.

It’s nothing really even very personal.
You just have a demon inside of you 
and you can’t have thought you’d get away
with letting him drive forever.

I want to be on fire, again.
Feel your breath shake, just for a second
beneath me. 
Feel your heart stop.
So you do have one.
But where was it
when you walked in the room
and saw a little girl like me?

I want you to fear me.