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.

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)

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.

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.

are you the pieces put finely together,
or are you a togetherness, pulling apart?

and what lies in the in-between,
the borderlines, the crevices?

those things that bled
from your mind into hidden places

what did you lose in the battle of wits,
what did the darkness hide?

there were so many pains
i hid you down there, down under
i thought we'd figured out the pain
we'd moved past the hurt
but i'm on a flight to another town
and its snowing and im floating
i never had the heart to delete
your music from my phone
and im trying to listen a little harder
so that i can hear your voice louder
than the music which envelops it
i want to hold you close to my heart
you are a black hole and i made it big
i left you behind when i moved up
but running forward doesn't mean you don't miss what you left behind
the plane is dark because the snow is heavy and white
i can hear your voice whisper
"hold on, i still need you"
and a tear runs down my cheek
the funny thing about pain is
sometimes the big things don't hurt as bad as the little ones
and sometimes new pains don't sting as bad as old injuries
they say your first always hurts more than your last
but my last ****** me up so bad i didn't think my heart had space for you anymore
i will always have space for you
we will never be, and i don't wish for us to have been
but I'd like one more late evening:
driving around in your car, singing along to eden, screaming at the top of our lungs at the beach
you live inside of me, in a place that cannot be touched, cannot be washed
there are things greater in life than love.

i found myself smiling in bed. beads of sweat dripping down my forehead and an exhaustion traveling in my veins. my body small, heavy, sunken into the mattress pad. i found myself smiling at the feeling of being all-consumed by the fever. i could not move my body, i could only wait till the fever broke. there was nothing more i could do, there was nothing more i could be expected to do. the blinds were shut but i could tell that the sun was near-setting. the reddish glow, almost like someone had put a wash cloth on top of a lamp: scattered, dim, warm. i had been in and out of sleep all day. i stayed in bed through breakfast, through lunch, through dinner. i was not hungry: i swallowed my painkillers and sipped on water. i was allowed to do this. i was allowed to skip meals, lay in bed, stare at the walls. i was allowed to let loud noises bother me, cry if i felt uncomfortable, i was allowed to sink into the mattress pad without a moment of guilt. my laptop lay on the table infront of me: there was a world of work out there but for now, i didn't have to be a part of it. i clung to these moments of in-between like a breath of fresh oxygen. i pushed all the feelings of unease to the back of my mind and let myself fall. i let myself fall. for now, for here, i could be me with an excuse: i was sick.

you walk around everyday doing what you're supposed to be doing. you're falling apart but you're sending emails. you're mentally fractured but you go to class, you sit through those meetings. you do what needs to be done. you eat a meal, you work out at the gym. you mold yourself into the caricature of your age group, gender, race. you become the person that makes sense to their eyes. it doesn't matter how much is wrong on the inside; but when a fever spreads across your skin and your body is forced to break: you can stop, you can breathe, you can be.