salt. Read Free Page A

itself.
    –– split

chemistry
    is
    you touching my arm
    and
    it
    setting fire to my mind.
    –– flood

you ask
    your heart
    why it is always hurting.
    it says
    ‘this is the only thing you will allow me to say to you.
    the only feeling you are willing to feel.’

weep.
    into your shirt.
    you’re allowed.
    –– clouds

he said
    ‘my absence is strong and warm.
    it will hold
    you.
    it will teach you how to miss.
    how to be without.
    and
    how to survive anyway.’
    –– how my father raised me

the stars
    will begin falling
    from your mouth
    the moment.
    you forgive yourself.
    for the silence
    you
    did not create.
    –– fault

‘i love myself.’
    the
    quietest.
    simplest.
    most
    powerful.
    revolution.
    ever.
    –– ism

i want you
    to
    drink the sea inside of me.
    –– summer juice

i dropped my pride
    in the gulf of your mouth.
    and
    i do not know how to swim.
    –– island

i look for you
    in the middle of the light.
    in the west of the day.
    in the warm memory of the water.

she is poem country.
    everywhere
    a
    language.

writing.
    is the way
    your
    being speaks to you.
    –– conversations

you are digging into my heart
    with both of your hands.
    who. what. are you looking for.
    i am right here.
    –– trust

i wake up in a poem.

i knew.
    read.
    sonia sanchez.
    nikki giovanni.
    audre lorde.
    before
    i ever even
    heard the name
    charles bukowski.
    finally,
    a proper education.
    –– the order

hire her.
    for your children.
    for your kitchen.
    for your clothes.
    for your house.
    give her a room
    with an unmade twin bed and a dresser. an alarm clock.
set her hours
    past her own children’s bed time.
    shorten her name.
    change her name.
    talk through her.
    call her a part of the family. without ever asking if she
wants you this close to her skin.
    just
    do not be surprised the day
    you accidently
    look in her eyes
    and
    her spirit pulls your heart out through your mouth.
    –– the maid

who you are.
    is not what you are doing.
    what you are doing
    is
    being
    someone else.
    –– architecture

her love.
    was the only medicine.
    the only.
    medicine.
    that ever worked. and this is why.
    she left.
    she
    wanted yours to work.
    too.
    –– healer

the thing you are most
    afraid to write.
    write that.
    –– advice to young writers

when i am lost
    touch the back of my water
    and
    i will return.

the wounds have changed me.
    i am so soft with scars
    my skin
    breathes and beats stars.

i have lost millions and millions
    of words to fear.
    tell me that is not violence.
    –– the deaths

if she is warm
    let me
    know her in the morning.

we write from the body.
    it remembers everything.
    –– bone and soil

your
    hands pouring sky
    all over my
    bed
    what language is that.

your mother may
    never return from war.
    but
    you will still see her everyday.
    –– two

fall apart.
    please
    just, fall apart.
    open your mouth.
    and
    hurt. hurt the size of everything it is.
    –– dam

she was flower salt in my heart, and she hurt beautifully.

for me
    there is no other.
    because there is no default.
    everyone
    is
    a variation of life.
    –– the human being | the human gender | the human sex

it was
    i
    who held you
    when
    you
    wanted
    someone else.
    –– treason

i saw love
    there
    i just did not pick it up.
    –– mistake

express your sadness.
    inside
    it has only one place to go.
    –– tissue

you are trailing long dust
    across
    our heart.
    there is an easier way to leave.
    –– over

you.
    the weight.
    rose cinnamon.
    dark honey.
    the clothes you wear on your mouth.
    the warm smoke in your legs.
    a quiet quilt.
    a mason jar (for moon).
    an easy laugh brushed with oil.
    time.
    the light left over.
    some music in your hair.
    you.
    –– things you bring to the ocean at night

why is the moon
    full.
    is it carrying the whole world
    too.
    –– daughter

you are a sea of light.
    open your eyes.
    see yourself.

i am terrified
    then i remember
    i am
    giving birth to a continent.
    i remember
    that
    i am