Sylvia, don't cry.
Come and sleep next to me in this grassy field.
Our knees touching like two knobby parentheses
cupping words whispered between us at 3 am.
Vulnerable.
Venerable.
My dearest sister in arms.
And if it makes you happy
we could talk about literature and Gods and good art and tea and faithless fathers and lovers.
Sylvia, don't cry.
Scream at me if it makes things okay.
Curse at the yellow moon hanging in the starless sky like a gold pendulum.
Break all the mirrors and wall clocks.
But don't run after a train that has already left that foggy station.
Sylvia, don't cry.
Stop scraping the answers to your sorrows off that crusty oven floor.
Go, open the kitchen window.
Sylvia, don't cry.
Next time the phone rings during dinner
Rip out the ******* cord
And choke that soulless *******.
Sylvia, don't cry.
Find a ladder and climb the frigging tree
Stuff your mouth with purple figs
until your belly aches.
Don't wait for them to fall on the ground.
Keep eating.
Sylvia, don't cry.
Slice their throats with your cursive knives
When men say
that a girl poet must bleed on the quill she writes with.
Smear your cheeks with their blood.
Battle paint.
My brave Amazonian.
Sylvia, don't cry.
I know at times
it feels as if your spirit is trying to
climb its way out of your own body
Stop swallowing stones to weigh it down.
Hold my hand.
It'll get better, I promise.
