Mad Woman by Sol Camarena Medina

All of the women poets who committed suicide stab my chest like wheat spikes
to my calves, like nails to the cross, like forget-me-not thorns
if forget-me-nots grew thorns.

My belly
sleeps like snakes, which is to say, it is always on guard. My sides
bleed the color of poppies
and I’m wearing a corollary of half-lit Universes on my back.

The fire burning you from within never
lights up your footsteps at night – shadows, however, pounce
on your pupils and devour
what’s left of your iris.

Madness that smells of musty rooms
isn’t my kind of madness. My kind of madness
are open rooms at a house nobody inhabits anymore
air leaking through a broken window
and pinning petals in vibrant colors
to the knobs of doors nobody closed.

The flight of the birds
leaves a trace of daytime dreams.
​
Flying is overrated – us, for once, we want
our feet on the land and land somewhere else
but
on our eyelids.

Sol Camarena Medina

is a mad, feminist lesbian from Valencia, Spain who's also a loud laugher and lover. she was born in 1997 and she’s self-published two poetry books in Spanish + her poems are part of an anthology of Valencian women poets self-published by FEA Feminista. she’s also written on mental health & feminism for Spanish magazines + she runs a blog, Pensando en Lila, an online platform for contemporary women artists, @artebruja and she’s co-editor for Spanish online feminist magazine La Gorgona.