In French, it’s “faire” which is “to make or to do”
In Turkish, it’s “yapmak” and it’s always like “yemek yapmak” or “yapma”
I try to make my bed every morning, pull the covers up (but I didn’t today)
You can make somebody mad, or make somebody happy, or make them cry
Things I like to make: friends, friendship bracelets, candy bracelets, memories
(Makin’ memories, said Sarah in Bangladesh, any time something stressy happened (to lighten the mood))
I like to make people smile, I like to make cookies.
It can be used as a causative verb (like have or get)
Make sb do sth for you
In this way (I would explain to my students) It’s like “force”
(Have is like “ask” and get is like “convince”)
It’s a part of lots of good phrasal verbs, too, like make up, make out
(both of which have multiple good meanings)
Make a list of all the things make means and by the end of it maybe we can see a pattern.
Make money, make a baby
Make do w what you have
Make believe, make way (cart coming through! Huge baby coming through!)
Make a mistake
I make marks on the paper and meaning comes out.
Thanks, language! Thanks, letters! You make my world a better place!

Daniel Tiger sang:
making
something
is one way
to say
“I love you.”

VICTORIA ANNE REIS (b.1982), mother to young Samimi, works in collage, zine, dream diary, multimedia performance poetry, and stand-up comedy. Her pieces are generally intended as offerings back to the art world which nourishes/alarms her on the regular. Current projects include a feminist science fiction novel and a therapeutic Wikipedia poem series. She would like to thank manuel arturo abreu, Holly Childs, and BHQFU's Poetic Act for inspiring the poems included in Imperial Matters. She is based out of Boring, OR and her favorite number is 0.