Don't worry, love,
I know those gates of stone
stand firmly
to guard the most precious parts
of your soul.

I am not here like the others;
not as a warrior
planning a siege
or a strategist
plotting to knock them down.

I respect your walls too much.

You have fought in more wars
than most;
you have been betrayed by more loves
than most could survive -
your walls are the result
of your scars.

So here I stand before you,
my weapons laid down,
my intentions spread out before the Sun,
with nothing in my hands
but open palms,
asking you
to let me in.

Show me, love,
all those terrible,
beautiful
wild flowers
growing in your garden -
I want to do nothing
but paint them to remember,
and carry their fallen petals
safely in my heart.

Open up to me, please,
my love -
I am already yours.

XXXI

Dear Lifeboat 13,

You saved my life over and over again
and my words,
My simple and barren words,
Will be but wisps on your memory when you finally
Decay.
I almost didn't get to leave, 13.
Second class and I just had to play the patience charade,
In a mass of people more like a brain cell
Than a crowd.
I was the last one in.
13, did you feel my body sink into your floorboards
And my nails scratch your oars?
Did my tears make you shudder
With the weight of my life that was before-
Did you feel it disappearing?

Lifeboat 13, you saved me,
And every day you will save me
From being a number in a book

I may have lived before,
But you will always be the vessel
That truly brought me home.

Sincerely.

XXVIII

New York was far too bittersweet
For my taste-
I spit it out, gave it back.
You lied, my friend- my poor and
Huddled mass isn’t good enough
For your golden streets.
I got off the rescue ship thinkin’
That survivin’ must mean I’m gonna
Be somebody, that maybe because a lifeboat
Walled me in, held my hand through disaster-
I had some meaning. Some reason
To walk on tall into your open,
American arms.

But I checked the list of the dead
Today. I read name and name and name
And
There is no way there were two
Margaret Clarence Smitholds
On that there ocean voyage.
What’s so dead about me?

I checked today and I walk and I talk
Far better than a plastic doll
And there’s no livin’ part of me I left on
That boat
‘cept maybe my heart

Because lord, there ain’t no
Dead in my skin
But I’m **** close to not bein able
To feel
anything

XXVII

A three of clubs.
A clarinet missing seven keys.
A left shoe, untied.

A cross on a fine gold chain.
Hot and cold bath knobs.
Three rubies, twelve emerald earrings
And seven diamond necklaces.
A baby doll.

A broken pocket watch.
Gold coins.
The teardrops of every man to lose
a lover
The hurt of every child to have lost
a mother
For every girl to have lost a boy
For every hand to have lost a hand
to hold
A friend to lose a friend

One thousand, five hundred
and seventeen souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

XXVI

Some say I’ll see the edge of nowhere
When I get there;
Trees will grow their roots up,
Streams will run backwards,
The grass will be bright blue-
and my unborn son, born
to the grave.

My wife has nightmares
about crying children and
screaming and waves
and I hush, hush, there
my dear wife of Halifax
and tell her the end is nowhere
in sight

In the dead of night I stand on
the boat deck
and wonder what’s really out
there
in the grand, decent world
Because Lord, if there’s no
plan for me
no place, no job, no
family
then I’ll just go

Just please, Lord-
let my baby live
and make it home