Where is my language
and why can't I speak it?
It's being replaced
with a haze of Spanish eyes
and olive skin
casting shadows across itself
in the mid-morning sun.
I would be one
to remember the days
of what I could say,
words integrate,
binding my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Colder, colder, migrating south,
hold my hand and tell me
it will be alright.
I wanted to know how the bird in flight
felt to have its feathers washed from its body,
how the decaying leaf
felt to be buried in snow.
And now all I want to know
is how it would feel
to be the world's smallest organism.
How it would feel to divide, divide,
roots so shallow I can't find my feet,
swept away by the smallest rush
of pins pushing against my body.  
How it would feel to be torn apart
in the name of science -
would I still be beautiful
if my ribs were inside out?
Would I still be beautiful
if my heart bloomed like the winter flower?
Would you love me if I could be anything,
a wasteland with a clear surface,
water being poured down the drain?
If I was a sequence,
the number of steps before the next system over,
would my DNA align just enough
to make me reflect you?
I'm hapless,
lethargic,
entirely theoretical,
and I'm counting the number
of substitutions I can make
before I no longer exist.
What will it take to wipe me away?
How many cells do you have to remove from my spine
before it is no longer my own?
I used to want to feel
the air breathing with me,
to know what it is
that makes the water love the earth so dearly.
Now all I want to feel
is soft skin on my hands,
the curve of my waist as I sleep,
the skin pale under the sheets,
beauty sighing from between my blue lips.