i think i'm so used to feeling things in grand amounts — love, longing, grief, anger — that when it subdues my body recognizes it as numbness and everything turns pointless in seconds matter

there is a taste of home on the tip of my tongue
that is here but also not
a constant state of sugar-coated longing, bitter-trailed meet-ups, sour-filled goodbyes
something i had tasted my entire life yet might never even had
a sense of belonging, somewhere to be safe
a place where it tastes like bittersweet comfort and everything else

i wish i could see your grief,
lead them by my own two hands,
then give them a room big enough in
me to fit them and their lingering shadows.

i am a terrible shapeshifter
for no matter how much i shift my shape
i'll always be what i am within
cruel, wicked, broken
worthless

do you think life will ever
give us a chance
or rather
the privilege:
to redeem ourselves,
to forgive our wounds,
to walk toward happiness?