I gave my voice to a pen
It wrote for me everything that I couldn’t speak of
The questions I was looking for
and the answers I already knew
The paper was my only surrender
Something I am still learning to do

These little children
Run through my head:
Nameless, naked
Bare to the bleached bones
Mouths agape
Hungering for meaning and
Eating it up like air
Screaming and clawing
In the dead of night
Pleading for light
And a home to stain—
So I fed them paper
And they left my brain.