I lick my wounds with
a sorbet sunset tongue
A slurp so icy thick and orange that it covers elephant horizons
My pain---a mirrored cloud skyscraper
it is king to
Grief
A planet where there are never enough parking spaces
If you find a place to rest
it will cost you an over- romanticized sensory memory
and then you will never be able to sleep again
I took up space
Decided I would sing among the meadows
Black filled my cracks and
my clothes started to wear me.
Everyone tries to hug me
They start their sentences with a dry, choking,  "at least."
I start to resent strangulation
Oxygen is my mother
She shows up and holds my hands tenderly,
rubbing her fingertips over my nail beds
I beg her to stay
to swaddle me and morph me into ten-year-old-me
She just murmurs, "me too."
"I want that too."

Could I be cotton?
Or the light that fills checkered New York cockroach apartments?
Could I be anything but a woman who is grieving over a black shelled conman?