With light strokes of my pen,
I will draw us racing towards an unknown
side by side
not knowing when or how to intersect.

Stripes across the page exist over a name
I've held so close to my heart
but abstained from using on my lips
where silence reigns.

Between lines, poetry lay burning
ashes of stories I stayed awake at night recounting
a rejected part of my humanity
that I cannot forget
that I will never forget.

October has left me with blood on my hands,
and wilted flowers in my hair
but I am a wound trying to heal
the stripes on my skin mark growth
life will emerge in the face of cold winter air
life will radiate like northern lights
gleaming like the energy of all souls combined
against a wall of star encrusted darkness.

Similar to thread and needle through smooth silk
I embroider your name into my poetry.

I sold all the innocence I believed in,
to describe the fire I see in the subject of my words.

With all the blood that races in me
I make it stop;
silencing my heartbeat and tongue
to witness the art that you carry in your figure.

Suddenly the poet in me has forgotten how to write.

we are made up of earth
our skin blends in with nature
disaster and beauty in our soulful eyes
finding love in between shifting plates
a newly found humanity
shaking our bones
but in the end
we drift away
existing oceans apart