I want to undress the sorrow that bites the wings off doves, make it bear, make it holy, make it scream.

I want to sing to the anger that shakes your hands, beads the sweat upon your palms. I want to soothe it to sadness, soothe it to scared, soothe it to self-loathing, and then soothe it again. I want to rub its shaking shoulders and kiss its forehead until it is serene, sleeping in the backseat.

I want to whisper the stories from all my birthdays and what age means to the God that chokes the air from your blood and puts fear into the stomach of mothers. I want to calm the waves of your heart, be the lighthouse to the way you felt at age five, wrapped in the forgiving and fragile skinned arms of your grandfather.

I want to be the lung unchanged by smoker's death wish. I want to be the alcohol that slips passed your lips and makes you tell your mom that you love her, tell your sister it wasn't her fault, tell your dad that you're healing. I want to be the ****** that moves under your marked skin, the blood that can't pass the tourniquet.

I want to feel myself inside your throat, climbing to taste your teeth and thread string through the spaces between your words, make a tapestry of every missing apology.

I want to be the wind shaking the curtains of every girl who has starved herself, cold and realizing that a woman is not a body, a woman is the bearer of life and bearer of tenderness. A girl eating an apple, telling the grass that the moon is everyone's mother and will never let the tides rise or fall without a gentle tug on the sleeve of the oceans, "breathe".

I want to be the life that moves through the earth, the snapshots in motion that we call time, the peace that the bottom of our lungs must feel.