He called me a star
But how can that be true?
My light is only there when I'm next to you

My dad calls my mom the moon
It's supposed to be romantic but to me he's a fool
The moon is a piece of rock
My mom is the whole world

He hold my hands
And tells me I'm the sun
I don't believe him
But it is true love

black spores on the mildewed walls
peeling over the wood
rot that even the vultures shun
it grows in cracks and in dark places.

the disease sticks its spiny fingers
down your throat, so you can’t
scream…
silence, silence, it wants
silence.
it wants
absence,
no self left to 𝘣𝘦.

outside, it has been night for years
babes born bawling, not knowing
what stars, moon, sky, sun used to
look like, nothing but the concrete
sea.

and yet, though Purity
has her headstone with the
rest, though there are no longer
prayers
to be blessed
there is good,
there is GOD in this
God-forsaken world,
there is GOOD
there is GOD—
you.

She stands there laughing with her friends,
While I fantasise about her, as I read my books

I tracked the way to the station she gets off at,
I couldn't track a way to her heart

I thought love was like the colourful trees, the tall buildings.
That the metro passes through,
I forgot the slums and the tunnels.

Fate made us stand together once, time paused, the worry about my meetings lost,
I just stood there, in awe, looking at her, lost in her eyes.

Eventually, I learned that the girl in the metro had a guy,
And now comes my station forcing me to step out of the metro.

every time i open my mouth to speak
my tongue tangles up in the branches and bitter blooms.
long limbs knotted up in christ and the
front yard of my childhood carry
green suns instead of rib cages.
i have called you a ruin!
i have called you the home i was torn from!
now that i can only speak in flowers,
can you hear me?

the orchid bears my naïveté
the rose my wounds,
the dying nettle my tenderness.
what if i am small forever? will salvation reach for me?
he sits there, on the willow with the broken branches.
and my mother, she asked him this one sunless sunday:
how can i help her find the light?
but i have already done it all. i have
torn out all my past lives from under rotting floorboards
and i have cut off all my fingers
(i cut off all my fingers just to touch you!)
no, mother. the question is
how can i help the light find her?

salvation spits on my grave.