“Dominique, you can forgive yourself now.
I promise you are much more
than who didn’t stay.
Please listen, Dominique, because this is very important:
the hurt is the beginning of all your poetry.
Dominique, you are full of words
that have not formed yet. And when they finally
do, they are going to be so beautiful. I know it.
I know there is such a thing as God,
and I know God would drop the world
just to hear you laugh. I know He’d turn the tides
just to watch the waves give you back to yourself and
I know you know I know
there’s an ocean
sitting inside the both of us. Dominique,
we both know
you cannot truly be lost
if you enjoy the scenery. So take a breath
and look around because Dominique,
there’s poetry in the sky.
It’s in the buildings. The people. The river.
Just know that even on your worst day,
when your eyes play tricks with your heart,
there is a verse inside you so great
that not even you
are you enough to read it.
It’s called Dominique.
It’s called who the hell cares as long as it sounds right.
And it does. It sounds the way you imagine knocking on your mother’s door.
Gently, carefully, saying,
“Mom, I know I’m late. But I’m here.”
And here you are.
All one hundred and seventy-one thousand,
four hundred and seventy-six words in the english language of you,
as well as a few others.
Dominique, you are so here
that you are always home.
And Dominique, it is time to forgive yourself.”