Haze

she said:

i know what it's like to love; to wish something into existence, but, my dear, the earth will survive a thousand wars before it learns to conceal you from pain, & allow the skies to wrap you in soft symphonies.

i am sorry for the great grief you carried alone; the grief dumped down your bitter bones.

i am sorry my child.

once upon a time; once upon a wandering light of a twilight that visits me in the shape of a dream; a dream that places itself upon my body, to govern & cover me.

i talk to your father then...

i talk to your father & he asks about you, almost immediately, i tell him of the sort of beauty you've grown into, he sighs into the unwilling air.

do you miss us?

i ask in shivers.

in every corner i've planted a lonesome prayer, to echo from the gates of heaven, i am here. i will always be here.

he answers, watching me drift back into sleep.

Daring Darling

Soft tulips are growing beneath

My tongue

Tenderness is the only politics I believe in

Wash me in

The smooth waves of a pale sunshine

Forgive; the self

Forget; the hurt

Surrender into the body
This is the folding of shadows

This is the rolling-out of bright colors
The proud colors

This is the singing out loud
& out of tune

This is the blooming of love
Inside
&
All around
The tired bones

Letters (pt. 2)

my love,

mother sobs on the phone
curls inside a single bed
of fatigued prayers
with a tongue
half-eaten with regrets
& apologies like dry leaves
shuddering
an empty street

my love,

sister came by the house
& prepared a bath of rosewater
buried me within the softness
of her touch
washing & weaving
my body
my skin
my pit
of purple blackened blood
i heard her weeping
my name
in a hidden breath
of sadness

my love,

the sky is pouring
all the cries i held back
my mind dissolves me
into strangers'
stretched glances
lurking from the outside
anger penetrates me
so cruelly
anger is burning me alive
i am alienated
in-between
& anger alone remains
for me

my love,

in intimate nights
i collapse
into violent devotion
& i write letters
cursed with
denial
come back to me 
come back home to me 

To My Brother / A Thank You

my brother's bursts of laughter
were like water bottles
to a heavy grief
he who carried
the lives
and rescued joy
from the ruins of skeletons
i wish i knew how to thank him
for the words
falling
like discolored confetti
in an empty room
i wish i knew how to thank him
for the prayers
soaked in tears
no one knew about
for the prayers
that sheltered me
the ones
he prayed for me
i wish i knew how to thank him
for standing, like the earth;
tall & bearing
each moment
collapsing over his shoulders
with the
salt & bitterness of an ocean
i am sorry
for leaning so hard
for sprouting away from you
from our mother
forgive me
i never learned to say thank you
for saving me 

The Promise of Home

I thought I heard the sound of the rain sobbing, in faithful trust I stood to hear the whispers settle in the night;

'This is only a paragraph, darling, written upon a page you can turn, sometimes darkness is other people who fill our lungs with the mist of loss

You can not dedicate yourself to hungering emptiness; this hole in your stomach, not a drop of the ocean will ever be enough for it

But the longing for God is wet upon your tongue, sobering, sobering you for the life that is yet to come.'

In The Ruins

I write to you, may you understand what it is I couldn't, this strangeness of the soul confronts me, like, like a falling about to happen; a violent downfall into the blade of ruins.

At the late discreet hour, my body is a glove of sorrow, heavy in quivering bareness; a bitter piece of flesh & bone sinking in private ruins.

Conceal my soul, abandon me, un-write the very image of self that escapes me; the lost purity my mind can't make up for, the purity I am no good to reach for.

Un-write me as I am;
Growing older
trembling  
trembling 
In the ruins. 

Seasons

& I have loved you in all four seasons

It was summer when sunlit, quiet flowers grew inside my mouth, happiness brought the world to my eager hands and I held you, there.

Then autumn came like every fallen leaf I was forgotten; sour and terrified, my restlessness washed me off, death occupies my life, it is too late for you to come back.

Winter; with daggers of silence that cut me with glimpses of you leaving, I was too much for you, I am too much for you, every night my voice shakes, incomprehensible, beyond the cries.

It is spring and my mother is brushing my hair with her fingers, there is a space where the birds don't sing, a dark space the poems can't reach, I am emptied of you there, I am empty, there.