victory in war by katixa espinoza

Mother said when the Egyptians built their temples, 
they did not make them microscopic. Handmade by clay 
to turn to stone, they were built immense to be seen by all. She said 
that I never was one to grow daisies that cloaked her outsides.
I grew thorns, when touched, they would bleed crimson. Wear it as lipstick and 
kiss my own bruises to mark my land. Bullets deep rooted into the ground, some wounds 
are tough to remove. Left tattooed onto skin to tell tales of a warrior, she said this
was her war once. I did not need a bow nor an arrow, I was a wildfire 
that spread through enemies’ land, the light in a fog of gunpowder. She said not to let them nail 
my tongue to a wooden cross 
for it was not vanity that spoke, it was the hum that my self-loving
ancestors left as they danced in their enemies’ graves.

✱✱✱

Katixa Espinoza is a poet who often loses multiple liquid pens from frantically penning her high school nightmares to sleep as she tries to find herself through writing. She blogs at https://katixaespinoza.wordpress.com/ but you can find her on twitter @kattidk_.