but if I knew one person in the world who could die
for others, it was you,
if anything on this table is bitter, it must be my coffee
stripped of milk,

I don’t remember most of it
It’s been a decade since I descended from the hill with paper wings sewn into my back.

I have four siblings, but spent the first eight years of my life as an only child. In that time, I understood the importance of having someone on your side—a sibling, an uncle, an aunt, […]

i am disgusted by what death

looks like even before the body begins to rot—

that being able to touch life into

unbecoming is not the kind of god i want to be.

i began:
god, swear my body is not a keepsake for all your silences.
swear you can’t hear these things droning like terrified frogs in my head.
swear you do not know that i am unwelcome in this body.

Have you collected enough of your things?
This house tugs at you
a little girl looking for coins
searching for language to smooth things over.

A body is an excellence of bones 
A union  of skin
And breathing mishaps.

In the bank lobby, a little boy of seven walked up to me and slipped his hand into my palm. He was looking up at me and smiling. A woman stepped up, said, “Don’t mind […]

Their story ends at the point where the woman sobs uncontrollably at the airport while being held by her mother. I want to tell them she is not her mother. I want to tell them how their story will never carry the weight of this loss. I want to tell them how this loss will continue to live for as long as her life goes on. The loss will be in the next family picture they take and the first time she explains to her daughter what happened to Rex. For the rest of her life, she will have to split herself into two parents and complete conversations with his ghost, telling her daughter how he would have been proud of her.

I burn my father’s prayers in a heap of hemp, & marijuana. I, vagabond because the wind will not leave me. The road ahead is a forbidden way leading to a discotheque for lost boys. […]