I should have known not to invite to dinner
You, the girl, the expert in starving herself.
How could I expect you to hold sacred our home
When you couldn't value your own temple?
How could I expect you to respect my body
When you're just learning to feed your own?

Sometimes you'd toss me a bite of laughter
A morsel of affection
A rotting scrap of comfort
You kept me fed, you learned to eat,
Regimenting all other aspects of your life instead
Your greatest strength, your self-control
Except when it came to controlling your hunger
For losing your self the way I lost mine
In him.

His wit, his reach, his pull for someone, anyone,
Even I, who left no mystery,
Even you, the unattainable,
You, I'd sit on your bed
You across from me
Alone together, home
Until the day you wanted to hold his hand
Regardless of whether I was ready to let it go.

Before you crossed oceans to explore new countryside,
Before I returned to dig for my roots in foreign soil,
You invited me into the same house, us two,
But I couldn't pretend you still felt safe.

You opened the door, arms, palms outstretched,
Pretty face pasted with a smile
I wanted to see the glue peel off
I couldn't trust your laugh
I knew it didn't belong,
I didn't belong any longer.

As soon as I left the edge of your bed
You invited him into your sheets.

But still, I tried to sit with you again,
Shifting, uncomfortable
The lingering smell of his hands
Reaching, pulling.
I tried to hold my breath, hold my tongue,
Despite the biting words gnawing the insides of my cheeks
An attempt to swallow, caught in throat
Until they finally escaped from between my teeth
Choking,
I spit them on your plate.
(Like the mounds of portions you used to abandon there
Before they told you that you'd shrivel out of existence
If you didn't start eating)

You buried your head in sheets
Hid your mouth with your hands
Drew in breath
And when you exhaled you asked me back inside,
Said you'd tell him he's no longer welcome
Cast him out to wander
A stray sitting on a stoop
I know how quickly the frost-bite spreads
Torso shut, limbs frozen
A long time ago, I convinced myself I kept him warm
Then it was you, the starving girl, who fed him
Now we've both told him to leave
Cast him out to wander
Torso shut, limbs black and frozen
I know how quickly the frost-bite spreads
As I sit on your bed, on your sheets, in our home again
You ask me to stay for dinner.

What if I told you that it is possible to dissipate completely
Into the space around us?

I can't tell you what shines the light that evaporates us
Carries us
And blends us into the atoms of elements and electricity.
It's different for every one, every time, I think.

Maybe we taste the vibrato of violin in our veins
Sending our cells on a swing of jazz and laughter
Until our molecules simply dance their way out of existence.

We might forget ourselves in the spiraling of ink
And words
And color
Until we are no longer aware of the process,
Without realising that we are both finding and losing ourselves
In what used to be these melodically silent pieces of pulp.

So instead, we close our eyes, sing a song that reminds us
Of the people we thought we'd be when we grew up
And where the hell is our place
Among all this inexplicable chaos?
Where the hell will our place be?

We're searching for the satisfaction of an answer
The yes or no
The black or white
That most of existence seems to deprive us of;
This formula hands us
That answer for
These questions,
Simple rules, complex consequences.

The integrity of shaping substance
Allows us to share ourselves
Exactly where and how and why
We are where and what and who we are who we are.

We share with it. It shares with us.
It's a process so simple,
So complex,
Creating this pattern,
And it's not just beautiful,
And it's not just useful,
It's inevitable.

We discover things that are impossible to be true
And then discover why it's impossible for them not to be.

We live in a country without the taut and slitting threads of a niqab
So we whisper, Thank God
Instead, we bind ourselves in barely-there strings
Lashing tan-bedded skin.
The pink-and-glitter headlines call GET BEACH READY
And we listen.
We've got to glow in just the right way
To catch the eye of the ever-expectant gaze,
Concealing zits, freckles, and military-green welts,

We brush over the truth about a lot of things.

The taste of rejection is rusty and red
I chewed the inside of my cheek when he said
*I'm just not interested.

Mourning dove chorus
Light soaks through petals
Revealing mazing veins

Softened riverbed
Replenished and fermented
Or so was whispered then

Bluesy morning drizzle
Opens mouths for dewdrops
The basin overflows

Mirror bears second moon
First tide does not abide
Both sink in metallic sand

Bellow thunder! Shudder ground!
Percussion ends discussion.

Lightning gaze penetrates and what was green is browned.

Sails sink for ascending sun.
Flesh breathes, "Shelter, please,"
But the earth bleeds barren dust.

Seeds surge through soil now and then.
Ebb and flow of rocks and roots.
Fruit snaps from wilted stem.