I have long forgotten how to play
and still we dance, dance, dance amidst
your winning hand, this lucky streak
euphoria, she has left for the eons
all eludes me, my memory of the last
time I had a taste of any life


we’re in castles apart, far and wide
here there are lovers I have yet to hold
but all of them look like you, and the
silhouettes they tell me there’s
only ghosts in my speech, defeat
on my tongue; lost before the
knights can ever come


the bishops, they bless the one
who bleeds light but I am only the moon
to you, here by the skin of my teeth
in every absence that you present
no more than a pawn in the
game when you crown
yourself king.

(a.h.z)

youth will drain out of
this skin in waves, and
you come to me in light
light light light, smash
our teeth on collarbones
grooves where knuckle
grows into jaw, sacrifice
love on the cornerstones
when you sing of safety
and a land I have never
reached. when father calls
me daughter and I bleed
split lip syrup thick, two
glazed eyes of the celestial
city passing by push us in
as we pull ourselves out
here, here in between these
fingers in the palm that lies
gapes gasps gasping for
air all for a promise, the
prayers on the tip of my
tongue amen, amen,
amen.

(a.h.z)

the sun in me must be heavy
because waking up is getting harder
i am practicing for the real thing
if we're being honest, i don't
want to see my 17th birthday
because since somewhere after
my 13th one, i have been restrained,
arms behind my back, while he
sucker-punched me in the jaw
i have spent the last 4 years
spitting blood and teeth onto the cement
and saying "thank you, thank you,
this is all i could ever want."

i've been feeling, lately,
like i can't write because the
weight of your goodbye
has fogged up my head
far worse than it was
when i used to lay in my
old driveway and imagine
the weight of your truck
against my chest.
typed out easily with a
smiley face at the end of it
just to tell me that your
departure from me does not
weigh heavy on your heart.
you didn't mean it that way.

the thing is, i wrote about you
day and night the last time
you clouded up my mind
but i still choked on the air
you always made so heavy
around me the next time we
spoke, so maybe this won't
do my any good.

the earth warmed up under my feet
steam rising from the ground
swirling upwards in the sun light
like one big exhale
and i noticed that my breath
only came out in a whoosh
no cloud this time
and i wondered briefly if
i hadn’t died
and just forgot about it
but a raindrop fell from a
water-logged plant and landed
on the top of my head
buzzed hair not being much protection
from water of any kind
and i smiled
because i was alive ******
i was alive
and music was playing loud in my ears
i could feel the chill of the wind through my layers
and even though my breath made no cloud
when it left my mouth
i was still breathing
my lungs still expanding
like a flower that had gone too long
without sunlight
and i looked up at the gray sky
the clouds drifting way up above
letting the smells of wet bark dust
and sidewalk and plants and trees
fill my heart and my head with a little
bubble of hope

i know that
most days
the cathedral of your body
with all its dips and curves
forgotten staircases
and ripped velvet covers
on the splintered pews
is hard to love

and there are days
where you wish that your
body would have manifested itself
as a palace
made of ivory and bone
with great empty halls
that would host nothing else
but your anguished cries
and empty stomach

but these things
are incapable of filling you up
because it is hard to sustain yourself
on bitterness and past scars alone

so i say to you
my friends
brothers and sisters
my lovers
and those living in the wastelands
of themselves

cast aside these
things for you are not a church
or a palace or a temple

no
you are something
much stronger and vast
grow yourself into a forest

turn all the sleepless nights
and breakdowns and hospital visits
and suicide attempts
and those traintracks of scars
into the great twisting trunks of trees

grow yourself as big and bold
as you need to be
protect yourself
wrap up all your sharp and soft
edges and corners
into the bark of mother nature

become a forest
because
through fire and drought and storm
and flood
the forest always comes back
even the charred remains of trees
stand strong

so
i say to you
with your dark circles
and long sleeves
and chest hidden behind a binder
with all your scars
and imperfections
be a forest
because
a forest is unstoppable
it always comes back
it always grows back

and so will you