James Diaz
The Only Way
This tree is no new horizon
empty belly
beetle bag
November wind
rocks the hollow clear
through thistle vein
water mark on a broken body
just over the blue northern
apple pickers
lost in happiness
the valley remembers what she carries
20 reds tucked into her skirt
she goes to the river’s edge
collects stones named after men
who put their hands all over her
throws them so hard into the water her hands go numb
she’s lost count by now
the number of times
she’s had to flick her wrist
against the ache inside
the great white opening of sky
she pours her name into the broken valley
pieces of the story
trauma rocks cut clean
fresh skin prickled autumn
you cannot tally the awesome sized hurt
inside this tree
cannot carry the water to its crossing point
this happened
this happened
this happened
this is my story
and this valley believes my every word.
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and editor of the forthcoming anthology What Keeps us Here: Songs from The Other Side of Trauma (Anti-Heroin Chic Press, 2018). In 2016 he founded the online literary arts and music journal Anti-Heroin Chic to provide a platform for often unheard voices, including those struggling with addiction, mental illness and Prison/confinement. He resides in upstate New York, in between balanced rocks and horse farms. He has never believed in anything as strongly as he does the power of poetry to help heal a shattered life.
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