I
There is a 3% chance I'll find you here. But if in each pair of eyes I dip, I find 1/8 of you; I'll be there soon.

II
I didn't crawl here; I took a plane. I spent six hours tracing the Atlantic from my window and you rose from the sea, dry and unsalted, twice each nautical mile. I would say it was my imagination, or the California wine, but I wear glasses now and never lie about what I see. It was you. And you and you and you.


III
Stealing is easier here. Maybe it's the crowds or the way the men smile at me like I'm harmless, but my hands move without question. They don't fumble or miss pockets, my heartbeat doesn't even protest. In prayer beads, silkworm cocoons, oils and sea rings, I am in debt to a city who doesn't know it.


IV
I have no ethnicity. Deep in bone coils the apathy and flight of someone's non-heritage. But I am forgiven; in a world of paranoia, brown eyes are always trusted and the way my hair falls reminds them that I'm on their side. Even my name curls within itself, folded flat and dead before it's over. It's better this way; no allegiance, no responsibility.

V
From a curb in district nine, I see your star. It's hanging where you said it would be but I can't see god in it the way you promised.

VI
On the other side of the world you told me about a quad of green. You waxed flowers of every color, the sky I've only ever painted and the people, beautiful and dark, who will save me. I found it. In broken French and broken sandals I found it and the sun was setting and you had just left. So now we both know you won't be the one to save me.

VII
With one foot in the slanting gutter I walk until the city circles and I'm back where I started. In a daydream I found you. I smiled and quoted your book, the part that said 'When we heard the guidance, we believed in it' and you looked at me in a way that scared me. A way that translated your face into thousands of alphabets, ancient and invented. And I knew none of them. Suddenly I'm illiterate to you. Suddenly I'm gone.

VIII
I'm with a man who's made of smoke and each strawberry ring that escapes my lips is dedicated to someone that I’ve laughed with.

IX
With the intensity of archives on fire, I withdraw. You are still a body; a few hundred bones calcified and aging, a mind of words streaming like spider webs, blood you never shed, and  muscles that cross in blinding precision, but you are not who you used to be. You bound to me in a way that's irreversible and now we're both stitching. Awkward and broken we pull at flesh to remove each other. We have scars now, like stickers ripped from wallpaper. The outline of a palm stains my shoulder, a thumb the size of yours in the crook of my elbow. Small, white fingerprints tattoo your neck.


X
I might be free. Over cobble stones with broken sandals I don't trip until I realize that a city where I loved is now part of me. I can get as far away from her as the modern map allows but the red and gold bangles that crowd my wrists are not to be taken off. They're a part of me too. Like blood spilled on a cobble stone, you will walk over us every day of your life.

Dreaming
With eyes wide
Open

Is the same
As running
Blind

A risk
Worth taking
Instead

Of the chocking
Confinements
Of this

God
****
Cage

i sit in the shadows and think
of what it would be like to show my wings.

they flutter behind me gently,
casting flickers of light on the walls behind.

colors gently fade and twist,
and feathers lightly fall to the ground.

the room i stay in is dark.
it has thick walls to protect me.

every now and then, the floor will rumble,
causing cracks to appear.

but, they seem to fix themselves.
struggling never helps.

i have been told i am shameful.
i must hide away, not show myself.

no one knows of me, except for one.

she seems to be intent on keeping me here.
but,

i hear her crying herself to sleep.
i hear people yelling against my kind.
i feel the rumbling of my floor caused by her sobs.
i feel the pain of when she pulls my chains even tighter.

i want nothing more but to be free
to be by her side, floating near her
letting her be who she truly is.

i feel the loss of hope,
as my small room becomes darker and darker.
it's hard to breathe.

a small creature such as i,
wings of pink, purple, blue,
a robe with every color

it's hard to be one like me.

but i'll survive, until i can see the rainbow.

I know it's hard to touch the clouds
when memories
hold you down
I know you cry a lot inside
when no one is
around
I know it is hard to wake up
sometimes
when breathing cuts so deep.

and the birds, they sing
but
you cannot hear
and the sun, it shines
but
you cannot see
and there's a lot of warmth around
but
you cannot feel.

I know it feels so hard
to live
with so many scars

but

light will shine and you will
see
and birds will sing and
you will hear

It's just a dark path
you have to walk
and I will be there
to walk along
don't hold your breath
don't give up yet
just
keep your hope
and you'll find one day
that you can fly again
for you deserve
the highest clouds
the purest air
the deepest love.

and I'll be here for you,
you, dear soul,
the sweetest lyric
of them all.

do you ever feel like there are mountains and oceans and stars and galaxies that you are meant to explore. but you're human so you are grounded and can't fly and can't escape this little life you have to call yours. but then you see your brother smile or your mother cry or your best friend laugh so hard you just have to bend over with her on the floor. and suddenly all those mountains you thought you had to climb you were actually carrying and they were weighing you down. so far down that you were sinking past the earth's crust into the depths of the ground leaving everything and everyone behind. every first kiss you have ever had. every first book. first song. first dance. and all of your lasts too. your last goodbye to the boy you thought you loved and your grandma who always wanted to travel the world but never did.
and within the chaotic mess of your little life you have to have. you realize all the mountains and oceans and stars and galaxies you're meant to explore are already inside you.