There is a chart that I keep locked away in a dark wooden box
in the shadows of my heart (for I have always loved a secret place)
and on this worn and folded page I marked years ago
the places in the sky that lead me home, the exact pattern
in the clouds when my hands are strongest, every place
that I have ever become a tragedy and in that box I keep
the commandments that came from the fire you lit before me,
scorching my feet, teaching me to be afraid of anything
that burns too brightly; you wove a heavy web of chains,
chains of whispered hints (don’t speak too loudly,
don’t laugh when he smiles, don’t show your legs, don’t be so strong,
don’t ask, don’t take, don’t be, don’t burn) and
I never realized how far your echoes would travel,
how long my bones would be vibrating with them
and how hard it is to hear my own melody through the din.
I am a ship begging to be sunk, to rest beneath the dark
in the serene waves out of sight and besides,
what is life’s poetry without a few shipwrecks?
Little seashell girl, little high tower green glass girl,
I won’t pretend that you didn’t do some damage
with your yawning silence, with your neat black and white and rage hate poetry
but I learned to tread water and I learned that silver words
and hard hands and a friend in the mirror can heal the burns
and build armor and learn every mountain peak of my heart,
and the way the man himself wrote only of his valley,
I have learned to conjure magic out of my own landscape
and after every drop in this rainstorm I have realized
that I am in your debt, little red eyed ash cloud girl,
for this gift, for this journey on foot, for leading me in circles
into the center of my own light.