I.
Everything breaks in the winter, even you. Your words will form like shapeless prayers, your hands folded into a rock you threw against the stained glass, your body a silhouette of begging. There, in a cathedral of snow, you will wish for spring. You will wish to be soaked in May, to grow flowers from the dirt under your nails. You will pray for another chance at sunlight, another chance to dance in the rain. You never wanted to disappoint six-year-old you, but here you are, eighteen and trembling, eighteen and doubting. Some nights you find yourself curled up like a fist at the foot of your bed trying to find an easier way to exist. In January your footsteps will be slow as the dawn and you will finally learn there is no easy way.


II.
When you were nine, you caught a butterfly in your hands and felt its wings drum against your cupped palms. Years later, as his fingers flit up and down your back, you will be reminded of how sometimes you must let beautiful things go simply because they are beautiful. And this notion will carry you back. Back to your eighth summer, back to the fireflies you caught in a plastic water bottle, the fireflies who needed scissor-popped holes to breathe, the fireflies you set free so they could make light. It was then you realized that some stars can be held but never kept. And now, as you fall asleep at night, somewhere in the world a child reaches for the moon but ends up with a broken-winged firefly. In your dreams you will reach out for her but never touch.


III.
I ask that September be good to you and you be good to everything else.


IV.
October broke you open like a question
and you found an answer composed
entirely of words
that will never come.
Dusk is a language
you have become fluent in
but refuse to speak aloud:
a conversation solely between
you & the silence.

V.
Now you find yourself back inside your home built cathedral, an unanswered prayer frozen into the cracks at the sides of your mouth. You move like a broken-winged bird in the heart of winter: a sparrow incapacitated by its own song, a white noise falling through the air like snow. Here you are again, curled up like a fist angry at everything, a swear forming in the back of your throat but freezing there. Not even in the darkest months can you convince yourself to abandon the hope of light. So you stay, silent as the spring and still as the dawn, and remember seventeen.

we must not forget how often a child is not a child,
how often a spit-soaked handshake means:
"i'm trusting you not to **** this up"
and then suddenly, as sudden as the cutback of a razor scooter
(may god protect those in low-top sneakers),
everything is all sorts of ****** up
(including us)

because in this life, in this interstice between birth and death,
we are dastardly

we are cowards,
afraid of singing in public and laughing out loud,
too good for a daydream or two

we forget how to be youthful
(in truth, i disappoint the past me all the time),
forget how to keep pinky promises
and we most often forget that it is us
who cause a child to no longer be a child.

in this poem I remember how it happened
how the sky broke over our backs and
how we kissed the rain instead of each other

we live in this story
because I know of no other place to put us
except fiction

we belong here

in this poem all the pieces come back together the way they got undone
in this poem you and I become whole again

I'm keeping this promise to you
even if you forgot about it
and I know you did

and I know you also forgot my birthday
or my number
whichever hurts less when I have to explain that you didn't call on my 18th

in this poem I finally understand
you cannot fill a body riddled with holes
you cannot love a heart that beats for another

in this poem I lie about the way we touched each other
in this poem I tell myself it went deeper than skin

I did not know how to fix you
and in this poem I apologize for it

in this poem I pretend you loved me back
but only in this poem

Forgive me for my retreat,      forgive me for how quick       I find
myself      lying slow on the bedroom floor.      More nights     than not      I pretend myself into a poet     even though I haven’t entirely      found the right words.     Did I tell you yet   that I am more wreckage     than warfare?   I couldn’t tell you     the last time     my tongue was a grenade    but surely these hands     have held the carnage.    Surely you understand    I am no poet     but     neither are you.   Then again,    who is?    Aren’t we all just    writing ourselves into     existence?    This language cannot hold    another me.    This language was not intended    to be misconstrued     between stanzas.   But,    how else can we study    each other?    How else could you know    that these words aren’t really mine   but I hold claim to them     anyway.   How else could you know   that this is not a real poem   but I bring it to war   anyway.

I have been standing here along the shoreline,
still as sea rock, arms outstretched and palms skyward,
trying to feel the weight of the moon.
I know not of how light the light can be but instead, how heavy the absence thereof.
In my body, composed of want and water, I have not found moon nor sun.
In my body, where my veins heavy themselves with night sky purple, I find you flowing.
I walk eyes closed into deep blue and squish
my toes into the belly of the ocean floor. Here, I am more salt
than salvation.
Here, I do not know you
anymore. With my eyes closed, I cannot tell dark from day.
The ebb and flow of things carries me
back and forth, towards and away, heavy and light.
Here, I am more human than anything else.

isn't this
the greatest tragedy of all?
two people finding themselves in
each other's bodies,
only to get lost again.

“Dominique, you can forgive yourself now.
I promise you are much more
than who didn’t stay.
Please listen, Dominique, because this is very important:
the hurt is the beginning of all your poetry.
Dominique, you are full of words
that have not formed yet. And when they finally
do, they are going to be so beautiful. I know it.
I know there is such a thing as God,
and I know God would drop the world
just to hear you laugh. I know He’d turn the tides
just to watch the waves give you back to yourself and
I know you know I know
there’s an ocean
sitting inside the both of us. Dominique,
we both know
you cannot truly be lost
if you enjoy the scenery. So take a breath
and look around because Dominique,
there’s poetry in the sky.
It’s in the buildings. The people. The river.
Just know that even on your worst day,
when your eyes play tricks with your heart,
there is a verse inside you so great
that not even you
are you enough to read it.
It’s called Dominique.
It’s called who the hell cares as long as it sounds right.
And it does. It sounds the way you imagine knocking on your mother’s door.
Gently, carefully, saying,
“Mom, I know I’m late. But I’m here.”
And here you are.
All one hundred and seventy-one thousand,
four hundred and seventy-six words in the english language of you,
as well as a few others.
Dominique, you are so here
that you are always home.
And Dominique, it is time to forgive yourself.”