I Try To Unwrite It

Sometimes I reread the poems I wrote for past lovers and feel like… this was too good for them. I try to take it back

Too tender. Too raw. Too sacred.

Bitterness shows up first.

Memory comes next. 

With it the soft ache of truth.

I remember why I wrote it, the little universe we lived in for a while. 

And I remember.

I remember it was theirs. Because a version of me meant it.

Even if they didn’t deserve the whole poem forever.

Some things are real just because they happened.

And some people get lucky enough to be written about.

The love was real, so was the poem.

So I give it back.

Collapsed

When I experience grief
I open and everything enters.
There is no space.
I’m suffocated by spirits.
I’m blotchy, dry, aching.

— from Repetitions of Ruin 
(incantations from the same wound)

I Wore You

we had the same conversations like it was yesterday
i wore blue for days and days straight
i wore all my fibers as you
i knew you were blue too
i fasted
i was corrupt
you wouldn’t let my burn touch a thing
you laughed in the face of it

Someone

Rooted into my soul,

he was vital, he oppressed

Potent love,

a bold kind.

Violent

His tongue barbaric

Puissant hand in hand

But he needed me.

I needed him—

I was afraid to say.

He held me.

He told me,

he’d keep me safe.

Shielding my power with his power

He was my someone

He was someone

Intention

She and I marry as she loosened her hair

I was warm between her legs

She was home

Welcoming

I loved to please her

I willingly submitted

She knew she was my baby

I knew how to make her come back

She was my intuition

Our whispering heads

Dancing heart

She played tug of war

Passioned

Me

I made love

She is my intention

Diver

The fire is live in me

I see the flames as they shift into you

One more time

The diver of my feelings

The hair on my arms dance for you

We remember

A moon cycle glanced your way

You made promises you kept

How I resent you for that

Shadow Snake

Too slick to trust

A shadow snake

Still I dance through the teeth of fate

I beg the God with bloodshot eyes

Could I strike with the soil?

Can I rewrite my sky?

Forgive me now, or let me go

Forgive me—flesh and stone

Tryna find my way alone

Truth don’t come but confesses

Still learning how to break

Behind tints possessive