Beautiful Fault

By Felicia Zamora

Let’s say I am significant & this,
how this leads to all possibilities
inside & outside the skull—this too,
a form of logic & fact
of imagination, as imagining itself into
fact—we imagine
ourselves every moment; I
create I; how we find ourselves
in space of each other; how
a page waits
on tip toes, on edges for
our participation. Do you feel
attention in these inadequate
strokes of language? Foundations
matter. A lack defines only
relative to something other; I am
something other & I love you
regardless of the withouts
you labeled me, regardless of
your knuckles at my lips &
how I’ve come to know
the taste of iron in my blood
& I want to believe that makes
me strong. Who gets to decide
what without looks like? I ask
but you know that I know;
I know I know—how I find
comfort in questions
you do not wish me to ask
about my body, my brownness
relative to you; relativity
used to be a game
in grammar school, you named
me greasy spic, you named me
dirty beaner, my vagina taco, you slashed
words at my body, a game
you thought to play me to pock me
to shut me up by gouge
& in the shower, I’d pick
at the holes your words
carved from me, place each
scab on my tongue & spit it out;
each scab torn to deepen the scar—
I wanted to remember
in the mulberry trees
my brother taught me
scars are wounds that bare memories,
gifts of resistance; he squinted
in use of the word gifts; what he meant was
it’s not my fault
that someone hates me before knowing
I exist; what he meant was
a fault exists in the vault of every universe
& my body is welcome there;
what he meant was
if we fracture a system long enough
our voices build
a neoteric system
with our voices inside;
what he meant was the lived faults
of me gather year over year
& make me whole & love me
& make me whole
& love me; what he meant was
we conceive ourselves first—fact
& tailor the world to hear us,
tailor the world.

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