I Don’t Feel Safe
January 6, 2021
By Maggie Swofford (she/her)
I don’t feel safe. To love
my neighbor means pulling up
the string on my shades,
bracing against the fresh
wind, embracing their frosted
sleeves and dewed shoes.
I want to know the imprints
their soles make on the white
ground, the way they knock,
friendly, unassuming
of an entrance. How do I
love, then, when their boots
slice the snow’s throat,
dark caked cracks climbing
up the steps into my house,
barging in, breaking in,
desecrating my yellow
rug, the only way to stop
the mud from spreading
through my home?
I don’t feel. Safe to love
behind closed doors, protected
by mere whispering plaster,
echoing glass, ensnared
wood—I am as simple
to burn as anyone. Simple
to erase. Simple to stun.
I have so little left to nudge
into this space—all the less
to remember.
I don’t feel safe to love
myself: loosening
and swerving muscles;
the quick snap of sunlight
on my forehead; numbness
in my fingers intertwined
with another’s; the adrenaline
of piercing and scratching
pen against paper—my
beginning, my ending.
Riots never end.
Rioters would rather
scorch the cords dangling
in my throat, steal the finger
of vows, own the vacant
space where I choose
emptiness, disavow my
humanity rather than
let me live. Who will
guard my life when
I don’t feel safe to?
Maggie Swofford is a queer poet who loves outer space, fashion, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolors. She reads and writes poetry that explores reality via unique imagistic language and metaphors. Maggie also works in marketing for a publishing company in Boston, MA.
Love her work as much as we do? Check out more of her writing on her website!
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