FOR THE SURVIVORS
Hey, y’all.
It’s the midpoint of National Poetry Writing Month. It has been rewarding and challenging to write each day, to observe my rhythms and moods and record them. So far, I have learned the following about myself:
I am a better writer in the morning.
I am a better person when I treat writing as a habit, not a luxury.
The prompt for Day 14 is to:
Write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., “Because,” “Forget,” “Not,” “If”). This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery. To give you more context, here’s an essay by Rebecca Hazelton on her students’ “adventures in anaphora,” and a contemporary poem that uses anaphora to great effect: Layli Long Soldier’s “Whereas.”
Here is my poem:
FOR THE SURVIVORS
By Farah Lawal Harris, 2024
Forget the men who saw buds on your chest and declared them breasts.
Forget the rain showers and the smell of hot guilt rising from pavement.
Forget the new moons in the sky, the clouded nights of hidden stars.
Forget high tide and the empty plastic bottles that wash up with it.
Forget all the hairs plucked and placed on shelves to be forgotten.
Forget weight of pain you’ve held on your shoulders like bags.
Forget the unbelieving eyes and the hollow question, “Why?”
Forget the scars, accidental and otherwise.
Forget exploding from inside.
Forget wanting to die.
But please, please don’t forget to cry,
to scrub your soul from the inside out properly with sea salt
because none of this
none of this
none of this
was ever your fault.
Never, ever, ever forget that
when you remember the assault.
