the promise of heaven;
a notion I have ignored
until right now--
I'd give my entire life over
to an unknown god
in the hope of a sisterly reunion
eternally in the sky--

If I could write a love song to myself,
My younger self,
Because it’s the most important relationship I’ll ever have,
I’d say

Dear Gracie,
I know you are in love with love,
But stay true to who you are.
Your heart is strong, gold, pure.
Don't let young boys break it.
The one meant for you is a long walk
down California’s golden coast,
But, beautiful girl,
He’s waiting for you patiently.
I don’t know what he is like,
I have not met him yet,
But, dearest Gracie,
I know he will make you laugh, and
He will hold you when you cry, and
He will name the shapes in the sky, and
He will pick you up when you fall down, and
He will make you feel like you can fly.

Dear Gracie,
Do not give up hope.
Darling, I know you are in love with love
So, love
Yourself.

If I could write a love song to my younger self,
I’d say,
Dear Gracie,
When you are sad,
Keep writing letters to your friends
To let them know you will always
Be there for them.
Oh Gracie,
When you cry
Keep writing poems
Because they give you life,
In the early hours of the morning after.
Oh Gracie,
When you are happy,
Grab all your friends
And run around in the sun.
Oh Gracie,
It is okay that you feel intensely,
It means that you love so deeply.
Oh Gracie,
It is okay if you do not want to look
At yourself in the mirror,
Know that you are surrounded by people
Who love your figure.
Oh Gracie,
In the shower
Sing at the top of your lungs
And it is okay if you don’t stop
To smell the flowers.
Oh Gracie,
Take all the pictures because someday
You will miss the way your friends
Smiled, and the way
that dinner tasted.

If I could write a love song to my younger self,
I’d say
Dear Gracie,
Keep writing your big dreams
On post-it notes,
And putting them up in your window.
Look in the mirror.
Smile, you are beautiful, darling,
I know you do not always feel it.
But you are.
Oh honey,
To me you always are.


Oh Gracie,
Be nice to your sister
Because someday
You will miss the way
She is so much funnier than you.
Oh Gracie,
My dearest, my darling, Gracie,
Be yourself because someday,
You will miss you too.

I I could write a love song to my younger self,
I’d say
Dear Gracie,
Please be yourself
Because no one else is like you.
Oh Gracie,
Please be yourself
Because I love you.
Oh Gracie,
Please be yourself
Because someday
(Hopefully before your blond hair turns white with speckles of grey,)
you will love yourself too.

If I could write a love song to my younger self,
I’d say,
Dear Gracie,
I love you.
You are right where you need to be.

my sister—
your love was as soft
as the morning rain,
our conversations
too innocent not to be beautiful
and when we locked our arms
and pressed our ankles together
to walk through a river of puddles,
the world was right,
our dreams, tranquil and endless

PorcelainTears [Anna-Maria]
November 7, 2020

You could desperate hear me start weeping
Ruckus started to crying to crack tangerine
holds one still upright auburn
as an immortal's loneliness fogged or condemned
stays a Sahara burnt hot tambourine
a hangover led Arabian
a broken record
some shattered the bathroom bar.


I wonder for my brother's dowry
on beds too kempt to be called beds
and doorframes and lamps set never high enough to hit again,
to stand to kneel to lock to lash to hold to my brother's body
now felt to me like the female sold fragile to the greater cities with
a vote,
he clearly left his Argentina behind no matter
how she paled, ended struck.


No longer a child or sister to pass as
to take guests in alone
to stand our married couple's cries an unmuteable radio
can't go back to playrooms for imparallel dignities' sake
that made all the noise at night worth it to deal with
I, don't want to play the rook
if no horse of yours' beside.


Now once the scarcity of your voice,
if even morbid,
is to be greeted by me alone,
Adam and Eve we have unable to see,
just for the empty halls of your decision just for me to hit,
your turned leaf hidden agenda of relief,
I recognise my faiths of the old of your endless
mornings supposedly killed by snoring and your
vividness to my thoughts a foreign concept,
to note you resurrected out of mind and out of sight
the congruence picks me out and slaps me that
our cocoon and safe designed for you
was nothing short of a coma web in your eyes
to begin with instead.

...

I look out to my brother's dowry
to hold stubborn, fainted in my nook the head of my brother's body
to sit on his old air this house keeps like a sari gem
he will never long for
again.

how can I hear the call
but ignore the cry?

Sadistic, sinister:

              The evil twin sister

I fight, I resist,

              But sometimes I still miss her...

From birth was a friction –

              Affliction – a blister

Now alive, I must die

              Every day and dismiss her

.