A poem by Yesika Starr - Eclipse

I am the woman
Whose grandfather
Hung himself from
The highest branch
Of a mango tree.
My father
Had a well
For a throat
Full of the cheapest
Vodka in a liquor store
And
Each weekend
He took to
Drowning in
His own voice.
I own a mouth
Like a highway
And
No traffic
Had ever been
Enough
To make me
Feel safe
Until I
Jammed
Myself
Into
375 pounds
Of gridlock.

When moths
Come in groups
They are called
An Eclipse.

This is my family.

We seek
The fire
That will end us.
Chug down the darkness.
Devour all light.
It is our instinct
To crave
Our own scorching.
The impulse wired
Into our wings.

Moths usually don't make a sound.
And so our slow dying
Was never made common knowledge.
This is how I spent
My first twenty four tears
Not knowing that
My grandfather
Had killed himself
And by the time I found out
My father
Was almost done
Successfully
Taking his own life.

I was next on the totem pole

But I was blind
To the way I was coming
Undone

I couldn’t see
How my obesity
Was claiming
Every part of me

My spirit
Broken
While I stood
Naked and weeping
In a shower
While my mother
Scrubbed
The parts of me
I couldn’t reach any longer

The shame
So thick
In my veins
I took to the internet
Wearing another woman’s
Picture as a mask
Tricking men
Into loving
The tender of my voice
The curl of my laughter
Begging someone to see past
The parts of me
I couldn’t look through anymore.

Always pretending
I wasn’t jammed full
That I wasn’t rush hour
With a pile up of cars
That I wasn’t a passenger
Hurled through some windshield
My spine a question mark
Splintered and bleeding on the road

I was tired of
Of depression
Being my heirloom
Of having to drag its wings
Everywhere
I went
Of everything
that called my name
the loudest
always
burning me
the most

Until
Suddenly
I decided
I was not going to be a moth
Nor darkness
Nor highways
Nor pounds
Nor the rope around my grandfathers neck
Or the bottle beneath my father’s chair

And that this thirst
For death
Was not going
To keep me
From being alive

That the night
Always
Surrenders
To the sunrise

And this is what I did,

I laid myself out
Like a horizon

Begged God
To flood me with light

Asked him to send me
Someone to love
And love me back

Over and over

Until finally
One morning
The mist cleared
And I was opened
To myself

This is the kind of eclipse
That comes
During the brilliance
Of day light

I am the woman
Who chose to live
Despite her
Inheritance


Xxxxxxx

I love Yesika. I love her work. Her smile. Her who she is for the world. This is poetry. Words that make me feel and grow. Words that make me want to write. To reach deeper within. Be vulnerable and weak and tired. And inspired.

Thank you Yesika for letting me share your words.