You
see pain,
Feel pain,
Live pain,

I cannot give an explanation for this pain
But I will sit here in silence
Peeling away the darkness of your pain,
find the embers of hope in your pain
And use it to ignite the fire to keep your cold hands warm.

Where the atmosphere meets blooming water
and boats of paper mache dock
You carry your dreams in a garbage bag  
waiting for an eclipse
to sew back together
your words of reconciliation that you sold
in exchange for hopeless daydreams
when you were too afraid of the aftermath
of healing

I am lost on these paper boats
Floating somewhere in an old laugh
We once shared
I am lost in these baskets
Made of woven conversations
And now you, right here in front of me
Are someone new, I've yet to meet
I guess my weakness has gotten the better of me
Wishful thinking had me fooled
Things were as they used to be
But here you are, and here am I
A world of differences between us
Born out of the blue, paving our departure
You toward the forest
And I, towards the sea

Somewhere in a dream,
you soak your heart in a basin of damp earth
and from it comes seeping out, the colour of your skin
the voices of your loved ones
cover you in blankets of layered melancholy
deep within your veins
flows a network of love that drains into
that heart of yours now buried
under rich soil, fertilized with hope
and from it, a seedling of identity grows

Braid the rain into my hair
and let the clouds stitch these wounds
as I lay under this canopy of gray
Writing stories about nonsensical things
maybe you can find something of substance
from my exchanges with the moon

and if the stories are too hidden for you
look deep into the shadow
cast by my drooping eyelids
somewhere in the exhaustion
are secrets I have left for you

To be a woman, in today’s world,
that stretches into the writing of a tomorrow’s world,
a world that feels so absolute in its reckoning
feels like a mountain that cannot be climbed.
I pray that you find some sliver of beauty
in the moonlight that chases you,
and the stars that kiss your forehead
when you sleep with your big dreams.
I pray you don’t let those dreams flow off your palms
into a river stream when this world threatens you with its cold air
You hold onto them tightly
because even with their singular light
the shadow you leave behind,
so big and strong – a fearless fighter
you stretch into the writing of your world
and your light brings me to write of you
in awe.

I made a list of caveats
For the designs you constructed,
From thoughts in my mind
And for one, you know me too closely
It is too frightening
The way you find constellations
In broken skies
And propriety from my colouring
Outside the lines
Then, within my bones, too unstructured,
You found the sun in their moonlight complexion
And you confess your secrets
That these letters and conversations we’ve exchanged
Hang in a gallery in your head

Etched sentiments
And faded drawings of everything resolute