Gone is the white wind,
my homeland, the beautiful.
Lost is the steady
smooth hue
of my hands.
I am smothered, adrift
on this violent black sea--
so easily unmade of me.

We are worlds bent backwards,
made of unknowable oceans--
I've been shattered, refracted
and thrown by the notion
that perhaps hope is nothing,
like a curse from this sea--
I am cracked,
I am flawed,
I am free.

**


we are shards of ourselves,
splintered wood, contradictions,
unnamed places;
dark inertia,
confident ignorance
and the illusion
of peace.

I am well practiced;
with a laughing smile, straining
every second
happy happy
no
I had only one genuine summer
and now I am back
to shows.

I'll do cartwheels and flips;
make rainbows and bridges
skyscrapers
all for the sake of hiding.

I am a hole.

I am a hell
I have always known.




**

I thought maybe
if I valued every second, every memory,
if I said thank you every day
and prayed and bowed
to all this world gave me,
I thought maybe
love would keep you
for me, thought maybe
I could grow old with you
and knowing only half of myself
would be okay, like maybe
if I could cling tight enough,
prove that I take nothing for granted,
that I value love above all else
and I would never waste it, and share it freely
that maybe
life, or good karma, or something
would stop this. You know, maybe
if I racked up enough points
I could cheat, avoid life, avoid another hole
because that's all I am
holes
which I have tried to climb from
since a child -- dear god, was I ever a child?
I will always be terrified--
I am cropped of myself, stolen
and drained, sold
as a porcelain doll, empty
so I am, so I will never know,
so I will always be
unknown.