I.
All life is is forgetting
how to live inside my skin,
how to breathe,
how to speak my language,
how to run wild in the wind,
how to know,
how to wonder.
Instead,
it is learning,
how to carry worry on my chest,
how to take in measured breaths,
how to say the right things,
how to think,
how to fold.
II.
life is filled with magnificent things;
like white smoke swirling skywards;
moths that come out of nowhere towards the light;
shoots that push up through arid land;
the gurgling sound of water on rocks;
quietude;
hills and their trees.
the only trouble with
beautiful things;
we look and look at them
and we go blind
and we forget.
The trouble with ourselves is the same.
III.
…shells in our hair and
smoke in the air and
broken hymens and
healed egos and
titillated minds and
loose waists and
reconstructed faiths and a
female god and
genderless garments and
holy kisses and
unholy losses and
tender men and
hairy women and
shamelessness and
steamy sex that is always sacred
and
fearful and tearful men and
listening men and healing men and
women sighing sighs of relief and
justice and
love;
forevers cusped in righteous indignation and
permission to be angry and
thank the ancestors and
scoff at power and
defy.
