[...] and the greater the wound the greater the fang. And, when we experience trauma that is given to us by so many people, we find that we have become every one of them at once. In my body I hold every trauma. In my eye is all of theirs. In the eyes of God, I am an abomination.

Perhaps the most striking part of this trauma is how we grow fangs in response to being bitten.
I did not lick my wounds.
I became you.

Today, I helped my mother with her garden. I made the earth soft, I placed the seeds carefully, I added a little bit of the nutrient-rich soil. I tried to place the seeds upright in the ground. I’ve never done this before. When I ask her how I’m doing, she says I’m doing good. She says I plant them so carefully.

My wrists and back haven’t been doing very well these past few days, but I know that if I let her, my mother will sacrifice her entire body to her flowers. She’ll offer her exposed skin to the sun and her aching joints to the earth. Her muscles will cry and the tears make the earth richer.

The doctor said she needs to rest. Her knees, the bad arm, her back.
My body hurts sometimes, but all I have to do is stretch and rest and it goes away.

I have to plant the bell pepper seeds.
I have to sacrifice my own body to the sun, to the earth and the flowers. It is a duty to the selfishness of giving. I must because I want to.

What would I do if I saw you weep again? How could I bear to see anything keep you from joy for a even a single moment?
How incredible to see you after all of the sorrow. You touch the earth, you plant the seed. Every morning I walk outside to look at the flowers with you.

And this is my dark soil. This is my water.

I wake up. I see her dutifully tending to her garden. I put on my shoes.
I am the flower blooming with the love of a mother.

I thought I was a desert, but the chaos of my longing was water.
Water, and water, and more water.

It pained me to say it before, but now it is simply a fact—Sweetest darlings, I drowned you away from me.

There is love in your breath
When you speak to me—
But oh, when I look at your mouth,
It is there behind your teeth;
And you clench your jaw so that none of its legs peek out.

Will you tell it to me?
Will you tell it to me like a story—
The dark thing that hides in you, amongst the wind-kissed fields of your love?

“I need to get ahold of myself” I say, scolding myself for wanting (and forgetting what I’m needing).

The warmth of your arm.
The love of a friend.

I am confused in my needing, my yearning;

I have dreamt of being on the floor, and you offering your arm to me.
Yes, how whole it must feel, to be cared for with love.
How warm it is in my dream.