I'm on a road that inevitably splits,
and as much as I hate the cliche
a choice still remains.
To be safe and comfortable,
following the path of my ancestors
through a life unfulfilled and instead befriend my own despair.
Here I will put aside my independence
to rely on the hands and wisdom of man-
to fester in disembodied femininity.
Here I will sit as a secondhand
with quiet lips and fingers only meant for mending.
On this road I will never know me-
only the character set up in the velvet lined case to appease the spectacle.

The days were bleeding into nothingness,
seeping into each other like teabags left on the counter.
Each day I succumbed
to the hostility of my home nestled in your teeth.
I aspirated the saliva between your words-
pooling in your cheeks and dripping from your lips as if you were a man tasting his first food in weeks.
I stood there,
beneath you always,
with my backbone growing frail having never been used.
There came a day, though,
when my bones began to shift with a magnitude almost mistaken for an earthquake.
When my vertebrae found their nourishment in your toxins,
flourishing in the wake of a new beginning.

She's like the desert,
not because her air is dry
or her breath hot,
but because of all her colors.
The hues of everything that's favorable mix into her-
into her hair and skin
and even her identity.

She blooms with every rain of thought-
every self realization becoming yet another bud, adding yet another shade.
Beneath her surface you'll unearth something even more vibrant,
like red soil against blue sky.

But most of all,
she resembles the desert
because when she smiles it's like watching the sun set down it's light
to be replaced by the of wonder
of the desert at night.

I feel myself drifting in your syllables,
swayed softly as if I were at sea.
Your sounds linger in my ear
like the waves crashing on shore
and the gulls in the air.

If there were ever a place to make a home,
it could be here.
Though if it couldn't be,
at least I can enjoy the serenity
and call it vacation.