Dirt Poem

recently, i wrote a poem about being
a poisoned plant
you know, damaged roots, etc
a little on the nose, maybe, but
something i needed to get out.

i remember being 11 and writing a poem
in a speckled composition notebook
about blooming
I felt it in my chest–I was certain
that one day I’d stain the sky.

i remember sharing the poem with a friend and they said
“awwwww! rachel, that’s really nice!” and i wanted to say
“no i’m serious
one day the sky will be purple”
but i just smiled & died a little inside.

i remember being 21
   & the look on that girl’s face
when she heard
that mean thing
i said about her

i didn’t see her face

but i remember it still–
i see it in my own
watery silhouette
bent over the surface
of the lake.

i remember being 22
    after my dad died, I wrote a poem
in a stray word document,
the first i had written in years,
about ink.

i was watching rain hit
the surface of that lake—
how could something sound so peaceful
when so much turmoil is concealed
underneath?

with wet shoulders i started thinking

about inky-
   depths, the lake floor
       where creatures grow
           that inaccessible darkness where vertebrae should be crushed
               under the pressure of all that unknowable water but
               no they keep swimming

Their superpower being
that they are made
of water

                   like I am made

of ink.

Between that dark lake
and that purple sky is
solid ground.
   Could ink, from a pen, fertilize it?
It looks like it might, so black that it shines
purple, so pervasive that it stains
as it seeps.

With enough ink
the solid ground could become
Dirt again–Dirt that streaks your skin

with muddy words
Dirt that you know
like, when your fingernails are black, but from digging in a garden–
   as opposed to that kind of dirt you feel dripping from your breasts as the
       machine of city summer squeezes you
           or that you feel sliding
               into your pores
                   when that man keeps
                       “having you”
                           and you feel
                           your self
                                       slipping–
                                       or maybe when
                                       you can’t feel
                                       at all.

If i dig deep enough into the real Dirt
(with my hands, like a kid at the beach–
wet unknowable ancient particles
under my fingernails)
I imagine I’ll reach
a pool of purple
ink

Because in the Dirt, even
poisoned plants
bloom