The only love I've ever known are
the scars on my mother's back,
painted in the colors of nightfall and
dawn, breaking into an immortal blue.

I can only imagine seeing the world
through her worn eyes;
coming home to a pair of ***** hands
and two mouths to feed,
falling asleep to what sounded like forgiveness.

And so when you offered your bare shoulders to me,
I learned how to love like a blind man—
my hands stretching out into the dark horizon beyond my lids, fingers clawing
their way out of the black and into the blue.

This is an apology.

For the nights you grasped my wrists
as I tried to paint you in colors you did
not need, for the times my fists fought
their way into your chest because
I only saw you in black and white,
for burying our hands in soil,
for feeding you words until your throat
was filled with the consequences of my inabilities,
for not belonging to you,
for not belonging to me.

Sometimes my body fails to remember
that my feet are my own
and that the ocean is going to be fine without my surrender
and that you do not need to break to touch me
and that i am my mother's daughter
but i am not her clone.