You have carved for yourselves a home
in the crooks of my arms,
where the beats of my chest come steady,
in the spaces reserved for my 2am thoughts,
your laughter echoes over and over and
my dreams have turned red, yellow, black.

I don’t know much science, but I do know
that no thick-rimmed, burnt-brow whitecoat
could have formulated a theory
quite like the night when you told me:

God breathes in your mountain.
Speaks morse code in the night skies.
Tastes like clear, running waters.
Dresses you in deep browns, floating gold.
Smells like first harvest, grass just rained on.

Honest and wide-eyed, you tell me it’s
all too intricate, all too alive
to be woven by a wooden fingered god.

Your tongues dance the languages
that you’ve conquered but not colonized.
I am unafraid of stumbling on their steps
when I am held by hands that build bridges
where walls have been torn down.

You have always sent me shaking,
crying, braver,
with how you,

wake to gunfire instead of alarm clocks,
choose to wield pencils and paints and bamboo song,

how you,

who have seen the flesh of your flesh
wrapped in a red not made of beads or cloth,
walk hostile streets with your fists and prayers,
hearts welcoming a shattered sky.

How you,

have never met strangers
without bombs in their back pockets,
yet aren’t afraid of my nakedness
sharing soap, sharing soup

with you,
a people,
our people,
my people.

Born of sun, born of earth
beaded bodies native to heaven,
your eyes constellations, maps
for the lost feet
finding roads to forgiveness,
finding roads to forgiveness.