i am in a haze today. it is cloudy and beautiful outside. it is also pressing down on my chest and i struggle for air. i wore your shirt to bed last night and it helped steady my oxygen supply. i wish you were here to say my name and speak to me in my native tongue to remind who i am and where i've come from. i'm forgetting everything, slowly. recreating yourself is only good when you haven't done it five thousand times over. i just want to be me now. but how do i become me if there is no you? pick me up from the library and walk me to class. hold my hand and tell me that you will stay with me no matter how grey the sky is or how cold my fingers feel.

I dreamt that gravity
was just a conspiracy
to sell us shoes
but we never questioned it
just stood, penniless on blistered feet
gazing at the stars

Rage, riot-
wage war against the mind-cage

I dreamt I was an infant
who never learned
that my outstretched hands
were mine, were 'I,'
they tried to bathe me but
I swirled down the drain
and became the sea

Wail, weep-
sell your soul to the keeper of the mind-cage

I awoke with this migraine
shook my head and
heard the shackles clink
reached up and felt
this fissure in my skull
pried it open, watched my mind sigh
and expand to fill this space

Grow quiet, shake hands-
have a cup of tea with the mind-cage

Now I am creation
took the roof off my house
I waft into the open sky
opened my heart
clowns from a clown car
the sorrows walked out

Embrace, make peace-
just be with the mind-cage

Weightless, I meet my old desires
fluffy little wishes floating in the breeze
but there is nothing lacking now
I hold the mind-cage in my arms
we float as it screams
and blames, and fades

Slither, creep-
escape through the open bars

Come home to this joy

when i was a child and went out during the rain,
my father would tell me
"you ain't sugar, child.
                                         who said you gon' melt?"
so i stopped dipping my toes in pool water
          and started jumping off bridges.
sometimes i would swim in fountains,
looking for kindness, but

i guess people eventually realized
      their cash wasn't worth their buck.
that no god in the sky was gonna give
             you somethin' good for five cents.

so lemme tell you, sugar. you wanna know
           the look the bank gave me when
i asked for my paycheck in dimes?
           that "you gotta be kidding me" look,
           that "wait.. you're serious?" look.
disbelief like no other.

           that same look i give you
when you step foot in the rain,
and i say "hey, careful now.
                 sugar likes to melt in this weather."