Today someone asked
‘Did she love you’.
Because my love for her was stolen
A brush of hands, of fingers tangled together but always in the dark
A press of lips to her collarbones, her cheeks, her neck but never her lips
It was bruised shoulders and bruised egos,
Lost declarations and lost promises.
It was the words I whispered in her ear while my hands danced across her ribs
Or the words requested in the deep of the night when sleep was to far and nightmares not far enough.
It was second glances and curious friends
And stretches of silence and hushed arguments in the vacant corners of rooms.
She stole my “I love you"s and stitched them into her skin like armor.
And then she wore her armor to kiss other girls in the dark and to press promises into their skin,
To hold them the way I held her,
To love them the way I thought I’d loved her.
I thought I could protect myself from the pain,
But when I looked, I’d found that I’d given all my armor away.
Today someone asked
‘Did she love you’

Kissing girls is for white girls
with slim hips and delicate features
whose reputation cannot be varnished
by a few quick pecks in the dark.

She said: loving women is for white girls
because they all grow out of it
except the foolish ones with troubled families
and fathers that never stuck around.

But my skin was too dark
and my family image too well crafted
to justify wanting to mess around
with girls that would leave me for future husbands.

I fix my tea before I dream
The herbs swirl in my subconscious
A ritual warm and full of steam
I wake knowing, “I want this.”
I read someone else’s words before I sleep
Losing myself to a story
A healthy escape that I’ll keep up
To bide off darkness and worry.
I wash my face before I slumber
Washing away the day
Tomorrow any anxiety I may encumber
Must in the future stay.
I pen my thoughts to the night’s sound
Striking the ink to the rhythm of my thoughts
Meanwhile fear and curiosity abound
I must momentarily quell my haves and have nots.

Dismantle your convictions
Break them beyond recognition
Into the smallest parts imaginable
For those fragments of atoms
Build us up.

The trails of burning Palo Santo cleanse me
Of all that I no longer need
But my soul’s light reflects off the smoke
Cobwebs of curiosity create clouds
Through which I cannot see
—My ancestors remind me to rely not on sight, but feeling