sometimes i am spilling gratitude out of my
eyes, and dripping it from my nose---
i have to wear lead shoes so it doesn't
float me ten feet above the ground.
other times
i am a sobbing
m e s s
with a hollowness too big within me that no words
nor art can fill.
and dark rooms become my home
and food becomes foreign.

i am slowly learning
that this is okay. that it won't always
feel right--
that sometimes you have to go through
rough patches, you have to string your body back together
and then you have to write them
down
with your blood as ink,
your mind as a sinkhole on the pavement,
just to make them real.