Four Poems by Maggie Torres
How to Occupy a Body
I’ve always been weary
of people who are more concerned
with my expression of pain
Than what caused it in the first place.
I’m struggling for air and I say
“get your boot off my neck”
You refuse.
So I remove the boot
the only way I know how
You will say “how dare you?”
I will look around confused.
I will look for help
but I will be met with silence.
They will tell me
that I was the one who was wrong.
Duality
Sometimes
I am overwhelmed
By the simultaneous
pain and beauty of life.
One hand gives
The other takes
and so it goes.
I just can’t
convince myself
that living through
another sunset without you
shouldn’t make my bones
both dance and ache.
On Loss
I wish someone had told me
That it is possible to grieve
For that which you have never had.
It’s a different type of longing
Nothing rooted in memory
Nothing for hands to grasp or trace
It is the worst type of loss
The pain of giving up before ever beginning.
In Defiance
So much of being pregnant had been defined by what I couldn’t do,
that I almost forgot what I can do
I can grow life and build a human being
more intricate than any machine a man has ever dared to make.
One heart to beat
Two eyes to see the good in the world
Lips to speak truth
Two fists to raise towards the sky in defiance
A leg to stand on
A backbone to never be mistaken with a wishbone
Two hands that make love and not war
I have taken a house and made a home
So when someone says you can’t do that
It is already done.
