SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.
Multiple things can be true at once. Like me, still messing up the title of this show & it being the best thing I’ve witnessed in years. Like me,
being a survivor, still being scared to say the word rape, & it being the defining experience of my 20’s. Would you believe me if
I said there’s life to live after loss? Would it make sense to be serious yet less sympathetic to shittiness after a 40-minute episode you have to talk about
during this week’s session of therapy? Before I was a survivor I couldn’t have been a woman. Before a tree drops its first set of acorns, some are already considered
rotten. Before I had queerness I was a kid, waiting on all restroom stalls to be vacant before exhaling. I remember nothing but the feeling after that forced,
compliancy apology. Hurt people hurt people is a really weird way to say rape. I remember ditching the scene, humming the anxiety away with a song. Maybe
MAY I DESTROY YOU feels more accurate to the experience. Maybe the song in my most haunted memories sounds like better run / to the ark / before the rain starts.
KB is a Black queer nonbinary miracle. They are the author of the chapbook How to Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022), winner of the 2020 Saguaro Poetry Prize. Follow them online at @earthtokb.
