Grip

**Author's note: I wrote this poem for school in the format of the poem "Hair" by Elizabeth Acevedo.**

My mother tells me to get a grip. And by “grip,” she means to rectify. She means cure. But how do I get a grip when I was never the one flying off the handle? The true meaning of broken, when our ancestors tap us on the shoulder and told us that we do not talk about what happened behind closed doors, did they imagine that their children would be as lonely as them- if not lonelier than them in a world full of improvement that’s only through improvisation? Did they imagine that we would hate them as we do, as much as I do? Trying to find ways to claw them out of our skin, chase them out of our minds, this crazy mess of a mind that strangles me. You call them silly flukes. I call them anxiety. Ancestors hushing. Can’t you hear them screaming their seasonal greeting, begging us to shu-- shush, to just be quiet? They say the night is the best time to cry. I mean people sleep, snore, have their own breakdown- but what they mean is the night is the perfect disguise to explain why we can’t leave our beds, blame our crying on bad dreams, and hope once again that nobody is listening. What they mean is, “Why aren’t you fixed yet?” What they mean is, “Why would you allow yourself to be seen as weak?” What they really mean is, “Have you thought of your daughter’s lack of control over her own mind?” What they really really mean is, “Why are you still alive?” And I don’t tell them that we are our own heroes, maybe purposely reckless but not a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued, that we are beautiful. That our body isn’t the only beautiful thing about us. That our intellect doesn’t determine who we will marry. That we don’t have to marry to make a better life for ourselves, that we don’t have to settle down with a partner just for the security of money. Yes, I am a female and that’s not part of a disease. Yes, I am a feminist and that’s not a bad thing to be. Grip, a reinvention. How I will teach acceptance of feelings, of ourselves, to our future generations so that they will live to love themselves, instead of living trying to find somebody else to love them. Momma tells me to get a grip, and so many words are just thrown out in the open. Because all I can reply is, “You can’t hold down the outspoken.”