Gutting The Pomegranate 

 

with the illusion of flesh
feminine flesh is shaped
like laundry on the floor
and is often introduced
with the same amount of care

when you gutted the pomegranate
red juice splattered on your face
no attention to your fingernails
and what hides underneath them
digging out the nutrients from fertile dirt

fingers play at the pomegranate
and my mind still cant swallow
the first time i stammered and slipped
around the reality
that my first sex educator
got fired for warning us of the truth of pleasure

how much it costs to take what you want
from somebody’s landscape of innocence

fingers emerge from the pomegranate
with faint watercolors of reds
i wonder if i licked the ruby jewel
from your hand i could taste what makes you
feel like royalty in your privilege
of feeling like you can own another body
without understanding the geography
of where the river flows

fist deep in the pomegranate
i inform the other of my cycle inspired by
the graze of the full moon
and how my sister and i’s flows
have conversations in the air
I watch him cock his head
and chuckle as if i exaggerated an
amusing fairytale i read from a book

cracking the pomegranate’s fleshy exterior
forcing too hard, the ripped page of an inflamed vulva
i say “oh” but i  meant to say “ow”
and try to touch my head to yours
i’m too tired to overexplain
how my body wishes to be touched

letting the pomegranate harden and stale
i weep for the miseducation
of what warming up my flesh means
you don’t stick it in the microwave
that allows easy pleasure
but forfeits the sustenance to the hum of what could be

touching the seeds
loosely, with loving curiosity
sexuality is bigger than our bodies
and cannot be divorced from what the container holds
no, but you were never taught
and neither was i,
to walk over guilt driven taboos
and speak up

 

~

 

Hope is a multimedia artist who is driven by the instinctual process of engaging with interpretations of reality through mediums of painting, photography, video, and performance.