my roots are growing in ashy
i can't stop looking at my acne scars

i taste everything good in me
and lick the sin off my fingers

but no one told me that loving myself
would be this exhausting

Close your eyes
   count to three,
it'll go away,
  it'll be okay,
four, five, six
   open your eyes
      you'll be fine
ten, eleven, twelve
when he died, I lost my sight
   I lost my purpose,
     twenty, thirty, fifty
I will never be okay. . .
       & that's okay. .  .

Before the storm, the river had all but given up,
the guttural roar of wind and deluge
rattled all souls, except her
and in the aftermath she swelled
and bore delicious weight again
and my eye-contact
with the pageantry of the green headed drake
told all the muddy truths:
to underestimate is to lose