peaflowertea – The Poetry Marathon

Pea Tomioka
peaflowertea

Pea is always in a stage of transformation and believes when we think we've finally become who we are supposed to be, then the journey is at an end. She holds equivalency to a Masters in Graphic Illustration from private tutoring and is working towards an interdisciplinary Masters in Psychology and Creative Writing. She knit professionally for a decade and advocates for alternative arts as therapy for all. She is passionate about advocacy, an active member of the LGBTQ+ family, and aims to provide therapy for victims of sexual abuse in a unique and inclusive environment. Pea believes the current models for sexual health are exclusionary to a wide range of the LGBTQ+ family and intends to change the conversation about healthy sexuality through poetry and erotica.

sketch of a man's eyes in charcoal. Handwritten text reads, "So I wrote a book about his eyes."

Hour Eight, Book Synopsis

There are so many books about his music.  How he changed the way we hear these sounds over airways

How you still hear the grunge tangled strings decades after the reverb died.

There are so many books about his relationships.
The tabloid traumas of accusations and that rock star life
How we still argue about how death lied.

There are so many books about his wife.
How love failed and murder wasted
The endless circles of conspiracy to breed the aneurisms.

So I wrote this book about his eyes, instead.

Hour Seven, Normal

original art by Pea Flower Tomioka @peaflowertea

I came as I was to the altar of your flesh, but I know I am not who you wanted me to be.
And open bleed on songbird wings to flutter into your forgotten evenings,
Aching inches to touch your sky with my trembling fingers.

I come as I am to the axis of this transition
Maiden to mother, and motherhood ahead like a roadmap I don’t know how to follow
Chutes and ladders like the ditches my indecision will get the car stuck in
I am unable to drive you.
I have no seatbelts. I don’t know what normal feels like.

I only know that mothers are awash with the ditches we back into accidentally,
which is to say that mothers are bathed in blood.

Hour Six, Without Walking

image prompt for hour six of the poetry marathon

This pinprick sickening my skin against this lonely afternoon
Makes me feel dumb, or maybe just happy.
Because I deserve happiness. “We all deserve happiness”, my mother says,
but I know that she doesn’t mean me.
Perhaps this is how we find god.

I take parks by storm, parkour race heartbeats over benches, and elderly objections.
I am flying high, I’m not gonna crack
I am gonna touch the sky
In a summer daze of cartwheels, I found seriality, which is to say that I found heaven.
They had skateboards and hacky sacks.

I can outrun my youth, but it was much faster to escape abuse on a longboard.