Now I lay me down to sleep,
while on a path only I can take,

If I die before I wake, then I pray my friends know what to take,

for if I am to be remembered,
then I wish to be remembered as the one who never surrendered.

Before I met you, I was a hurricane of a girl.

I was full of burning hot lava and made up of not just star dust but meteor showers.

I was the moon and the sun and every type of sky in between, the purple and blue of a whirlwind storm and the orange-pink hues of a tired day.

I could create waves as high as the boats that sailed my waters, then calm them just before they sank.

I could put every ******* natural disaster to shame with the power I held inside of my gut and my heart and my soul.

Now, I am the aftermath. I am the battered towns and the sunken dirt.

I am the cloudy night that conceals the evening lights and the defeated sea that seems to submerge into itself under the weight of the sinking sky.

I am composed of the residue of every catastrophe you have thrown my way, but underneath the rubble is the same girl from before, alive and whole and full of every great storm and tsunami tide the world has ever seen.

Start digging.

i am overcome with grief and guilt every time i wash my hands
because i do not know how much of you is left in the fine lines of my palms