heave

we could carry fields of sun between
our skin, in our hands, under our eyes
breathe in the salty fragrance
of ocean air
to fill silence with
a warmer stillness
vaguely remembering
outstretched palms sailing off across
uneven cliff sides

do you feel the distance
our bodies position according to
breathed words, simple thoughts
of flight
to ward of hazardous memories
that disregard
here for there
solace for understanding
memory for love
erratically scraping our heart sides

we could count crumpled bones
our momentum heavier than worded
breaths carving a sympathetic pace
of fragments fastening anchors
to walls where directions keep invented memories
of synchronization
love breaking an aching
of midsections
and numbers
we make light of
fashioning shells for insides

foreigner

Some days I miss the country I've been
birthed from; a land of water and fire,
now distanced by the places I've known
and existed as.

Some say to know where you are,
you must remember where you've been;
I've been a lot of things and in many foreign
places where I've left behind and gathered up
tiny grains of light and particles of darkness
that still fold themselves into my skin.

Some kinds of loss are penetrating
to a point of exhaustion.

Funny how so often I've forgotten the questions
leading to the answers that come riding up
across these plains ranging from waters to waters to land,
the greens to shines and shades, shapes and spaces

some place where the holiest
and truest parts of who I'm going to turn
out to be have congregated to make me
into what I'm unfit to be made of.

of fire earth wind and sea

She said she forgot which parts were memories
and which were merely desires,
that it felt near barren to wear nothing
under her skin but sand and bone
for the first few years after
she’d been birthed from fire.

She heard the way I called her
anything but the name she knew
and when she wept,
not knowing where to call herself,
her face rounded with the world
until all the continents
reunited to bring everything together.

Once she felt the wind move
through her from head to toe
until her mouth cracked open,
parting just enough to breathe out
a silence that she’d dressed
herself in after shedding off layers of words.

When we neared the water,
her eyes saw only distances
as she picked up a shell,
placing it to her ear, saying
only when it’s empty can you hear the ocean.
I wanted to press my hand to her chest,
waiting to feel the waves crashing.

november fourth

the way the pikake catches the scent of rain
and leaves its traces soft and fragrant
sweet and too quiet for happy sounds

how we pluck the words so carefully from
the sides of our mouths and peel them one by one
from our tongues and plaster them to walls

and how missing has become tangible
in-between eyes exuding desolation
and the distance between coming and going

ask how the tide pulls out all the shades
of purple and white, shines, shapes and grains
filed down by weathering haphazard patterns

and the way the body’s broken down
to bone pieces and ash in the spaces between
the same way we remember in fragments

how we miss the fragility of passing
silences between our lips and through our clumsy
fingers reaching for anything substantial

dreamt, part three

We were fragile for all the spaces in those time limits. Because of the way dark’s the same in the morning and night. Because we couldn’t see each other when we were trying our best to look. Because we made the shadows climb the walls too high. Because we gave away the best of ourselves to be fools for what we believed was love. Because when we got too close the heat drew too much of our energy. Because we stopped moving into each other. Because we hung our sopping coats in the walkway until the puddles created their own foot-spots. Because of the sound we made when our mouths were clamped shut. Because we didn’t know how to unfold the wings we’d tucked behind us. Because there came a sacrifice of tears and broken parts. Because we knew the secrets of hard places and the battles we were losing. Because the songs rewrote themselves and the words took new meanings onto their backs as truths. Because we didn’t know the sweetness until bitter was the aftertaste. Because gray doesn’t shine in even the brightest light. Because we were already finding the way to come tumbling back down. Because of the way the corners of our eyes gathered teardrops until sadness took on a fresh definition. Because of how much softer our skin was when it brushed against each other. Because we were never certain of how timing and departure were relative. Because we couldn’t see past the path our feet had met. Because somehow we’d mistaken rain songs for prayer songs. Because we weren’t careful not to let the needles pierce too far. Because we couldn’t quite reach each chord with our fingers. Because we wanted to believe something could be glued back together.

dreamt, part two

Once when we were little, we traced our silhouettes across the bedroom wall with the brightest chalk we could find. We laughed at the way her head shape resembled a mushroom top and how our bodies seemed so scrawny they could probably take flight on kite strings if we peeled them off the wall.

We left some blank version of ourselves in that room. Walls that shared the secrets we thought we’d kept amongst ourselves. Sister-talk our parents called it. We didn’t name it.

dreamt, part one

We spent a lot of time allowing ourselves to be held by the ocean. My father tried to teach me to float on that massive body of water when I was a child. I never understood how the mass of my body could sit on the surface of all that cobalt color. Even more so, I couldn’t understand the way his weight stayed afloat.

Our arms would be stretched out until we were holding the whole sea. There were times I would close my eyes and other times I left them open, trying to take in the sky as well. What can someone so young do with all that earth in their limbs and organs anyway?

I always stayed suspended when I wasn’t trying. Once I’d calmed myself into stopping all thoughts there I laid on top of the water. Sometimes a wave would surprise me and wash over my closed eyes and I’d stop breathing for a moment.

One day when I was eleven I got pulled into an undertow. If I’d started drowning I wonder if I would have recognized what was happening or simply kept my eyes closed, still taking in all that blue.

we hide the world

“i feel old today. not like a ninety year old woman,
but a girl who's lived lifetimes upon lifetimes in
her own skin, and the weariness is heavy; daunting,
almost. days as cold as today somehow manage to make
their way into my bones. it's the closest thing to
comfort i've felt in awhile, as odd as that
sounds,” she says.

“as though into the belly of a whale and i'd slide
right past the baleen, down it's throat, settling
comfortably in the warm hollow. but we all know
emptiness isn't warming and certainly doesn't feel
like home, no matter how familiar. so maybe i'll stay
right where i'm at, curled into the fetal position
and unmoving.”

she exits her own body.

we take time to remember

how the sky bled when we were waking
where the hinges rusted shut
when we could stand empty mouthed
taking space to conjure snowstorms
painting photographs through our shutting eyelids
the way it came so softly we couldn’t hear the footsteps
wanting to believe in the greens and blues
if our heart space left anything out
feigning sick just to have some time to breathe
why our intimacies tangled each other so delicately
when our eyes watered not for the tragedy but love
threading that tied everything back to the beginning
the patterns across her draped afghan
feeling the weightiness of rain songs
the windows reflecting nothing we acknowledged
how the warmth didn’t complete who we’d been
when we held each other so close we forgot where we’d been
riding skylines until our legs and strength gave out
making love until our skins pigmented the same
straining our calves to reach high enough
the numbers three and five and the way they don’t count
spacing out the distances with our breathing in and out
how we remembered where we used to be
how we remembered what we once demanded of ourselves
how we remembered starting too high and still getting higher
how we remembered

we still feel

the weight of wording between soft lips
the weight of the entire ocean and we’re floating
the weight of fractured rifts and sweet songs
the weight of laughter in the sad places
the weight of rain puddles across skin surfaces

the pressing of wind lyrics on our ears
the pressing of skin touches when we’re yearning
the pressing of time in our bone marrow
the pressing of hand to hand when we’re sleeping
the pressing of our feet in the sandy banks

and it’s calming
and it’s comforting
and it’s careful where we’re fragile