there is a single scratch
on the waxy hardwood floor
from where she broke
one night in august.

a single, jagged line
where her feet tripped on the broken frames
that held fleeting moments
where her chin hit the ground
because her knees already had
where her hands couldn’t let go of her own lungs
to catch herself in time

its submerged now
in a puddle of crimson tears
and surrounded by
shreds of her white cotton sweater
with the ink stain on the cusp

you see
she was trying to fly
but her shoe laces had grown to vines
that crawled up the sides of houses
and into the drainpipes beneath the city

she wanted to dance on cloudy pillow tops
sing the lullabies her mother whispered into her dreams
pull sunbeams through her fingers and tie them into her braids

she hadn’t learned
skies rest on the ground
clouds need valleys to cry on
the earth must turn for the sun to rise
to fly you must have the floor to leave.

What did it take?

A beautiful boy packed tight
With no hint of a man’s chin
By his dad who
Kissed him goodbye
With a hope of seeing him later

What did he know?

Carrying a sunburst in canvas
To strangers who never noticed
That their end stood five-feet-two
With a running nose
And a mind full of his mum

What did he think?

Avoiding all eyes as he stood
Among them with a small chest
That felt ready to explode
With the pressure of keeping
A secret for moments more

What would he think?

His life now a curling photo on a shelf
In a home where a family once laughed
And dust on a street where people still
Buy drinks, phone covers and fruit

bleach
the pink splotches on my not white clothing are because of you

dilute it and you have soap
drink it and you've got death

hum and click your fingernails if they're long enough to reach the table

rub it into your skin and forget your parents' identity
clean the counter with it

bleach

if you're reading this, we must have made it after all.

Why an emptiness within
with the summer wind
blowing away the dust

Why the mute tears
we weren't friends for years
but came together awhile

The earth doesn't pause to grieve
but in the heart of hearts
when a good friend leaves
the void for lifetime hurts.

My grandfather is a poet
He writes of a man’s purpose, his ergon
And of the group home he once ran, for parents who didn’t understand the curse, or possible gift of their child’s disability
He said there was a boy who floated, despite being palsied
And who yearned for a man with a beard like snow
Sometimes when I dream of things that I’ve never seen, his poems come alive,
Full of demented calliopes and pills that are every color of the rainbow
And someone’s hands interlocked with another’s

My other grandfather, the father of my mother, is an artist
He paints crisp lines, diamonds like the eyes of a cat in the night
And sketches with an open palm, shows stories of long ago
When my mother was nothing more than a child, unaware of how her father drank himself to sleep
Every single night
He couldn’t afford champagne or cognac, so most nights it was cheap beer that tasted like sawdust
And soon he’d become sawdust, floating on the wind, if not for that tiny voice inside
That said
Stop

My grandmother is a healer
A woman understood by few, the type to stay up late worrying
Over pain and personality, over dreams and nightmares
She can heal with a touch of the hand and a handful of pills and
Once worked hard to create a world free of the three letter disease no one wants to talk about
She’s always been there
Yet she still doesn’t know how important she is to me

My father is a lawyer
He advocates for the voiceless, raises himself up when there’s no one there to speak out
Loves no matter what, jokes like the father he is until the break of dawn
He raises me up with heavy hands and a heavier heart
Because we have our share of fights, our screaming and kicking, our pinning and pushing
But never has my love for him wavered

My mother is my world
She’s held many jobs, from unofficial pet store employee at eleven to director of a nonprofit for children in foster care at forty-five
Nowadays she works hard, keeps her eyelids from sagging through long days and longer nights
Raising her voice for children with no one to call mother
And I call her that with pride, because at the end of the day,
We would be nothing but stardust
Without our mothers

My grandfather is a poet, and I’m one, too
Bridging the gap of generations with words
He taught me how to write through a book sent in the mail
And I’m still grateful, looking over the tattered pages of his poetry until the sun catches up to the moon
He taught me how to live, how to write
My grandmother taught me how to heal
My father taught me how to speak out
And my mother taught me
To be myself.