As a girl, her hands traced it in the soft darkness of summer
And that was all it needed: the tips of 4 fingers to say, “I will consume you now,
I will overtake your everything, your you.”
She promised and she didn’t know, and it happily devoured her
She was happy, too

As a woman, her hands snapped it in the hidden places of night
And that was all it needed: the evidence of 1 act to say, “I might disappear now,
But I will continue to consume you.”
She felt her old promise, and it easily burned her
But she had been easy, too

It is a shower for one, a leftover shirt, a journal
It is loneliness, cluelessness, a hoping
It is a nightmare, a few blunt words, a knot
It is reconnection, thankfulness, a knowing

It was a day, a smell, a letter, a clover
It was joy, a warm bed, it was a kiss and a day made
It was a basement, a taste, a song, a child lost
It was pain, it was bareness, it was a declaration and tears

It can be 6 years of life and it can be a home
It can be 2,190 days drugged and it can be a prison
It can be willfulness
It can be contract

Yet it remains a system of organs, of muscles, of bones
It is held together with smoke-roasted skin

It remains a collection of memories, of touch, of letters
It is held together with never-ending care