Along the road stands an angel
with wild hair and a mouth full
of astonishment, an angel of stone:

mother, you stayed behind
you've seen too much
of the carbon black sky

The ground shook at night, the door
rattled with angry neighbours. 'Go away!'
father cried. 'What do you want?

My daughters? Shall I send them?
They are still virgins.' He called us
but quickly quickly we left the city

that was ****** then
We no longer have friends
Next year we would get married

Demon of the light,
Standing by my side,
Showing me the way,
Saying it’s okay,
The only person who makes me feel safe

The safest place in the world is my front porch at 3 in the morning some hot July.

Where I’m from, the heat never has a chance to leave you. It curdles the starlight. You breathe it in like when you were 8 years old and stuck your face too close to an easy bake oven.

Out here, the world is only as quiet as it needs to be. You learn to recognize each streetlight by their own glow.

Soon enough, it will be time to walk back inside.

i like to imagine myself trekking across
a great desert, or tundra, or wasteland,
and it’s dark but the sky is glowing
with stars and the sun on the horizon
and everything is that beautiful natural violet.
there is nothing for miles and miles and miles
and in every direction is the same thing.
i walk over hills and through ditches
but in the hugeness of the landscape
they are nothing, and it’s still wide and flat.
i wonder and i dance and i shout at the sky
and i flail my arms around and trip over
and i yell and grin and shake to the stars
and to the space beyond them, that infinity.
i tip my head upwards and smile to
infinite amounts of infinite things up there.
i am confused and i am lost and i am scared
and in all of that i’ve found the most joy
that is even possible to be felt.
i scream at the infinity in a friendly way
as if i’ve figured out its secrets,
as if we’re on the same page.
i thank it and i laugh at it and i scold it
for everything that i feel and know and am
because one of the infinite things up there
must have given it to me,
whether it knows it or not,
and i feel safe and tiny and fleeting
and i am so happy to be the
tiny second of useless time and phenomena
that i am.