every time i open my mouth to speak
my tongue tangles up in the branches and bitter blooms.
long limbs knotted up in christ and the
front yard of my childhood carry
green suns instead of rib cages.
i have called you a ruin!
i have called you the home i was torn from!
now that i can only speak in flowers,
can you hear me?

the orchid bears my naïveté
the rose my wounds,
the dying nettle my tenderness.
what if i am small forever? will salvation reach for me?
he sits there, on the willow with the broken branches.
and my mother, she asked him this one sunless sunday:
how can i help her find the light?
but i have already done it all. i have
torn out all my past lives from under rotting floorboards
and i have cut off all my fingers
(i cut off all my fingers just to touch you!)
no, mother. the question is
how can i help the light find her?

salvation spits on my grave.