Expectation invites despair, despair brings expectation.

Oi, Warrior, walking the path of hell,
Forge your soul into a blade full of will.
For heaven’s doors are like blades of steel,
Which never yield —
Until you strike them
With a blade born of hellish will.

She saw a face
in her dream.

When she woke,
she remembered
the face.

“Strange,” she thought,
and decided to paint it
before she forgot.

Still, she looks around,
wondering
if it were
a real person.

there's 289 miles between me and my dad
and a phone call connecting us.

the thread of conversation stretches from the office kitchen,
through the cobbled city streets and
over the channel,
down the motorways, the carriageways
until it reaches smaller towns,
bare winter trees,
a small lake with ducks floating and birds chirping.

he's crying.
he never cries.
he never calls, not in the middle of the day.
his voice wavers in time with my shaking hands and the trembling surface of the coffee in my mug.

i'm an hour ahead but time feels frozen.
those 289 miles are melting away with every garbled sentence he utters.
the man who used to hold me on his shoulders is probably
crumpled over the kitchen table, coffee growing cold.
mine's cold now too.

he's 289 miles away from me.
i'm years away from him.
we're holding tight to a string of grief,
two ends of a tin can phone,
crying together.
and i am still his baby.
and i still have him.

his dad was 331 miles away.
now he's in the sky.
intangible.

i can hear the birds chirping.
i can hear the lake rippling.
i can hear his heart breaking.
he was someone's baby once.
the miles between us mean nothing.

he cries for his dad
and i cry for him,
cradling the phone like a newborn.

i want long hair and a baby.
i wear soft jumpers and let the rain fall on my face, sometimes.
i worry about being alone.
i laugh with my friends until my stomach aches.
i watch life fly by past my window.

being twenty-something means seeing yourself through fractured glass fragments of mirror:
i am 18, frail. young to the world.
i am 19, confident. unafraid.
i am 20, learning. becoming
21.

i keep each piece in a pocket of my mind,
a patchwork of a girl
with untied knots at each corner.

i often wonder how i am seen by others.
it frightens me to imagine only those thin shards of light that permeate from me
on a first glance.

but i have been 18, 19, 20,
and i have lived and cried and loved.
between my cracks and crevices emerges
a smile with wonky teeth, thick eyebrows, the birth mark on the nape of my neck.
footprints on my face of a girl who was, who is.

so i'll grow my hair.
i'll fall in love.
i'll carry a little heart in my tummy like a plum stone.

a kaleidascope perpetual
of ways i have been and ways that i am.
and i live to hope that
through kind eyes
and a soft voice
and a gentle heart
i will be seen for all that has made me,
and i will make someone as beautiful as all i have seen.

beware when you make a wish upon 11:11,
for the time might seem right,
and it could come true.
but make sure to build the prompt the right way—
use whatever nature's against.

i wished upon it once;
since then, it has stayed stuck.
what i needed didn’t specify to what extent,
now it clings—halfway here, halfway broken.
the ultimate wish turned something akin to a curse;
now i don’t know what to believe, or what to wish upon.

so the next time it turns 11:11,
excuse me if i turn my head and play pretend.
wishing was once a task done without thinking;
now it has become dire,
i don’t know what wish i should come up with.

this is just a warning:
careful what you wish for.
to what extent, specify the details like you’re sure it’ll all end,
for sometimes, unknowingly so,
things get done—halfway or more,
and what remains can never be fixed.
so either you sculpt, move over, and plaster that wall,
or continue and stare at the prettiest rupture that you’ve built up tall.

read her?
the layers beyond comprehension
everything she's written
barely the surface, what's the matter?

literal, nuanced solidarity
right there, right here, in the midst, steer near
wonder, humane doubts touched with eloquence

read her.

Come lay beside me
Hold me for awhile
Wrap me gently in your arms
Touch me with your smile

Come and close your pretty eyes
Let’s just drift away
Hold me tightly in your sleep
I am here to stay

When you finally wake
I’ll be holding you
Wipe the dreams from your eyes
Just hold on to what is true

9/16/21

maybe if i write about you enough
spread proofs of our love on the internet

let strangers know how we used to dance
the gods from the satellite will bring us closer

maybe they are playing games with us
shooting our waves south to north

the earth is round
we will find each other again

it’ll be a Thursday
and the moon will be shining

when we do meet,
you’ll look like me — maybe older.
your firm hand will hold mine
and i disappear in you.