…inspired by Mohave Linguist and Pulitzer Prize Winner, Natalie Diaz’s poem, “They Don’t Love You Like I Love You”
I don’t call it dreaming, it is a constant state of being, becoming.
“Who are you?” my mother asked, although she never really asked
in words, just by her lingering stare.
And how many times did she say, “Use your own judgment,’”
which meant “Figure out what I want you to be.”
“Dance.” she ordered long after I stopped performing on stage,
often it was at family gatherings where tensions burned.
Walking on eggshells, I tip-toed on my own way, trying hard not to
outperform my mother, my siblings, my friends.
What has my life been if not catching up?
Catching up with childhood. Casting away abuse
by an ayah who locked me in the bathroom to watch
her menstrual blood flow down the toilet. “I’ll put chili peppers
on your pee-pee,” she threatened.
What is America to me if not catching up? With the large,
the fast, the transactional?
I open my eyes underwater and let fresh lake water flow by,
washing away disappointment, grief, anxiety of losing
control of my body.
But lakes have borders, I long to be borderless, I yearn for
the ocean. And horizon. And floating.
To be close to trusted hands smoothing my breasts, on to
my waist to my hip bones.
At the time, I thought my mother was asking, “Who are you?”
perhaps she was asking herself. My father told me in many ways
my stars were in the right place.
He drank to dull memories of heads shot off during war,
to ease the burgeoning pain that billowed in his hips and heart.
I drink to relax and to be patient. What war am I fighting?
I am super active. Hyper?
Sitting outside, I listen to birds and wind chimes,
imagining I will flow into who I am.
I remember lullabies, limericks, jingles, songs on the radio
from the first chord, and move into rhythm with ease.
Living creatures and words in various languages cluster in my dreams.
Old loves, clear waterfalls. lilac bushes
…tasharrafna …muito obrigando.
“Pleased to meet you,” (Arabic) “Thanks so much.” (Portuguese)
I wonder, wonder what I was born to?
Wonder, wonder… Who am I?
Searching for my country,
I swing from faraway vines, let go easily into a roiling ocean
Lee Woodman, author of the “Scapes” poetry series, is winner of the 2026 Indie Reader Gold Discovery Award, the 2025 Independent Press Gold Award for Poetry., the 2025 Nautilus Gold Award for Poetry, and the 2020 William Meredith Prize. Her six published collections include “Colorscapes,” “Soulscapes,” “Artscapes,” “Lifescapes,” “Mindscapes,” and “Homescapes” —all books that treat inner and outer landscapes—literal, emotional, cultural. For podcast interviews, book reviews, artist statements, and readings of her poems, visit: http://www.poetleewoodman.com