i want to reach out and touch her hand
her hair is dyed pink but the blonde streaks show
her body is awkward and her skin is burnt at the shoulder
straps where she forgot to put sun block
and i want to reach out and feel her skin

there is a comfort in the familiar
we love what we know
and there is nothing more lovely
than knowing what she is because
it is what i am and i feel like i know
what will bring her joy and what will
bring her pain and there's something
so comforting about knowing that
her history is one of violence and pain but
she is of love and of kindness and
purity is over-rated but her heart is so
pure.

the history of man is ****** but
the history of woman is resilience.

how long i have admired the shape of
her body and it has taught me to love
my own.
i do not want to reduce my sisters to a
body or a touch because they are strong
and wild and honest and kind and there
is depth to them beyond being a kiss on
the lips and a stroll in the park.
i have such respect and longing for the
touch of kindness, one who has seen the war,
fights it now and fights it forever, but
loves you as if you were made of flowers.
she is made of flowers-
and iron and steel-
and blankets and cups of hot chocolate-
and truth and warships.

the touch of a man is pleasurable
but the touch of a woman is fulfilling.

looking at her now, i wonder if it is strange
to love her as a sister- as a warrior- as a leader
and to still love her as a lover- as a muse- as a body
to love a woman is to love a nation.
to love a woman is to love a war.
to love a woman is to love love.
to love a woman is to love yourself.

two concepts
dance around
in my mind
from time to time

the first one is
secure
small towns and
familiar faces
streets with grass
growing in the cracks
and parking lots with
the footprint of my
disintegrating shoe
pressed into fresh asphalt

streetlights that
come on to let
me know it’s time
to go home
a soft place
to call my own

the second one is
romantic
intriguing and scary
traffic and lights
and people and buildings
that fight to reach
into the clouds
an unfamiliar city
with corners and caveats
to explore for the first time

lights that never
burn out
restless crowds
to fade into
as soon as someone
learns your name

two very different thoughts
both equally
concerning in
two very different ways

complacency or
out of place?

i refuse to give
myself an answer
or maybe i’m afraid
to let myself wander

but a third question
knocks on my
skull and
lets itself in

and i can’t help
but wonder

what does
five in the morning
feel like when you
can’t see the sunrise
casting shadows
on empty fields?

does the world still
find a moment to
release its breath
before the day begins
when the city didn’t
even sleep the night before?

what if i don’t
belong here?

which outcome would
leave me least misplaced?

what do we do with



the vast sea of silence



between the small spaces of sound

february was a siren
each day—a breath
each hour—a heartbeat
each moment—the tick of a clock
the wind is not the wind no the wind
was a whisper, a call a beckoning
to both the cold of january and
the wetness of march april may
each of them a lover themself
she doesn't know and the moon
won't tell her what she is
not a siren, a nymph
the breeze—her kiss
the sky—her soft cheek
the trees are her dance and
the night is only her shadow

you say you're dating a
"white girl from virginia"
and I laugh.

it's too much to ask
that you give me a chance
and i don't want to beg.

let's forget that we stay up
all night talking
we're on our way to
saving the world together.

let's forget that you go on hikes
with my dad and i have tea
with your mom.

let's forget that your name makes
my blood slow down a little
it's the kind of love which makes you
feel like you're at home.

i don't know if you ever loved me
i just know that i've always loved you.

maybe my skin was too brown
my name was too ethnic
maybe i just wasn't the right fit.

i hope you love her the way i do
silently, heavily, kindly.

if i hold my silence now
i'll regret it forever
if i hold my regrets now
i'll stay silent forever.

you dated a brown girl
only to marry a white girl.

tell me how to separate
these wounds from my
colonial scars.
i'm still here,
trying to make it
in a world that wasn't made for me.

you fell in love with a brown girl
only to marry a white girl.

tell me how to feel like
i wasn't your taste test
i wasn't your "cultural experience"
i know you fell in love with me
you learnt my language
you memorized my tongue
but the night was
way too young.

will you give your child an "ethnic" name?
will your daughter have my name?
or was i just one of your
growing pains.

i'm just like my mother
falling for the ******
colonizer.
(i'd let you destroy me,
anyday)

it's not your baby
in the womb i carry
i need your forgiveness

we made no commitments
you do not claim me as yours
but i need your forgiveness

this is what i dream of
on an unsuspecting night
the child of my husband
in the womb in my body
and my mouth forming the words
'i'm sorry'

i have never touched your skin
and i do not think you ever loved me
but betrayal comes in shades
and i feel ashamed to let myself
be without your company

there is a sense of destruction
buried inside my veins
from the absence of you

there are things greater than love

which bind us together and i fear
such binding

it makes my ground shake when i catch
a ray of color which matches your eyes
flushed in the green of the grass
or the blue of the sky

i don't know when it happened, but it did
you found a little home for yourself
within the confines of my mind and
i miss when you were around

it hurts to see you and i don't want to feel you

because the distance and the rain
the deep guilt and the pain
the fact that you feel nothing
you will feel nothing
i fear

my love for you finds itself
manifesting in instances extra-ordinary
my ache for you is buried within knowing that there is another inside the womb of me
and can't get rid of the voice saying;
this isn't how it was supposed to be.

as autumn quietly approached
the cold air against my fingertips,
hanging out of a cracked car window,
began to feel less like a bite
and more like a kiss

during the last week of september
the grass wore a thin layer of frost
that I could have sworn was jewelry

sometimes I forget
where my body ends and
where your body begins
where the boundary lies and
sometimes I wonder
if the boundary even exists