Robyn Joy
Robyn Joy was previously published in volumes three and four of ONE IMAGINED WORD AT A TIME, the Writers for Recovery Anthology books, and The Hippocrates Initiative’s Hippocrates Prize 2020 anthology. She was also a finalist for Hunger Mountain’s Ruth Stone Poetry Prize in Spring 2020. She has self-published seven issues of a sobriety zine called Best Intentions. Doing the work of getting and staying sober helped her rediscover her love for writing poetry and participate in several public readings, culminating in this body of work. She lives a quiet and thoughtful life in the capital city of Vermont, with her husband, Lloyd, and their beloved and precocious kitten, Thomas. She and her small family are currently under doctor ordered quarantine until further notice while they fight Lloyd’s Multiple Myeloma. She also enjoys assembling art, taking her dreams and thoughts apart, camping and yin yoga
I AM HERE
I have been irritated
since the minute I was torn
from the comfort of my first living room,
the womb,
and my mouth became my bellybutton.
I could scream and cry from my new mouth,
but my mother tells me,
“You were a quiet baby.”
The heat of restrained fury
made a home in my chest
containing my voice
so that no one would hear it.
Because girls should be small and cute
and fit neatly in pink snap shut cases.
Dirty thoughts and aggression are for boys.
I can picture my father,
and the exact moment
he stopped looking at me
as his little girl
and saw me as
the damaged young adult
I was degrading into.
It hurt to disappoint someone I worshiped.
He was the smartest man I knew.
I remember how I cried
the first time someone hit me
because I was frightened
of anger being realized on the outside
and how I cried even more
the first time I hit someone
because the release felt so good.
I have always wanted to be seen
but without asking for it,
and not by noticeably taking up space.
I wake up every day and think
“I am still here,”
wondering where “here” is
when I often feel so lost.
If only I could be small
and believe in something easy,
like a good woman should.
©2020 West Trade Review
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