Holy ghosts leave me to write,
as I can ration the written,
I can't keep this storm
since I was born,
This is not me
distinguished
Just me trying.
To be a better version.

I'll melt into you, dear friend.
May you paw at me and latch on
with your pussywillow claws.

I will breathe you in like mist
that rolls forth and coats my tongue
and slithers down my throat like a feather boa,
a gentle paralysis.

A little bit of death gives me life for tomorrow.

Once I was eaten by the sea—
its waves, the hands that grabbed at me.
No air to breathe, no land for feet,
it seemed that I was all but lost:
blind and beaten, thrown and tossed.

But then I heard the sweetest sound:
my own heart’s beat—pound, pound, pound.
And up from those waves, my body rose
until my face had broken shore.

My eyes, they burned; my ears, they rung,
but that deep fear was all but gone.

I got lost today in the women's hips
they were moving with feminine wild grace in the heat
I was lost in the subway's speed when a woman asked:
"Where did you get those shoes", "how lovely they are"
"From a small fair on the banks of a lake", I replied
"Oh, I just got back from Caprile the other day"
"I hate you", she said and she laughed
I got lost in her blue dress, I reciprocated
the sweetness of her smile

Just one;
and the crowd disappears.  
Not the noise,  
but the ache beneath it.  

Your robe sweeps  
like the edge of a memory  
too sacred to name,  
too silent to forget.  

I didn’t ask.  
Didn’t shout.  
Just reached,  
as if the gravity of healing  
could be borrowed  
in a breath.  

Blood listens.  
Shame stills.  
Every fracture sings  
beneath skin mended  
by mercy  
I dared not deserve.

You turned.  
Not to scold,  
but to see me,
the me behind the reaching.  

And that touch?  
It was not mine.  
It was yours,  
returning everything  
I didn’t know I’d lost.

Walking and writng work in tandem
Even in intense heat and pouring rain
Could be a word or phrase
A memory
It is needed and necessary because it works for me
That is why I leave music home
Silence the mobile phone
Never really alone

No one talks about how painful it is
To love someone who wants to die
About the anger that you aren't enough
That they're okay with leaving this world
Leaving you here

We don't talk about
The constant fear
That they might already be gone
That couldn't save them

The terror when they don't answer
Every time
I find myself unable to breathe
Thinking about the blood on the floor
Imagining the rope around their neck
Picturing the empty pill bottle next to their lifeless body
There is so much fear

Please call me
Please tell someone
You cannot be alone like that to end your world

Please call me if you're going to do it
But it will not be for goodbye's
I will not tell you it's alright
I will say that I will ever be able to forgive you
Because I won't
I will only forgive you if you started breathing again
But when you're dead
That's it
You're dead

Yes I would be devastated
Completely and utterly
But that's not all
I would be angry too

2am anxiety attack
3am writing them poems
They're not enough
The words aren't enough
I'm not ******* enough
No one talks about being up at 4am doing research
How to help
Words to give
Grasping thin air for something
Anything
To keep them there

Now it's 5 am
Making lists of ways to make things better
How to make the world more livable
Because they are not allowed to die
6 am still awake
It doesn't matter that I won't get any sleep
I don't care about myself anymore
I don't care about my life
They just need to stay in it
That's all that matters