everyone always tells me to let go before i hurt myself, that the onset of spring isn’t worth the decay of autumn i let the dry carnations you gave me all those years ago poke out of my pockets and create ripples in this ‘present’ the trees see those browned flowers and i hope you will too.
because i’ve never been one to hide my rough calluses from the world i’ll stand bare and shivering in the breeze and i’ll still wait i never wonder if it’s worth it letting these tree-roots burrow deep into my being, and carve my blood into this soil.
my nani ama’s soul belongs to the sea & her mermaids cant get to me i keep hoping the ocean breeze will permeate my skin & bones & make me a woman more like her
she had twelve children & the saltwater never stopped flowing out of her to seep into the crevices they didn’t know existed i keep forgetting that she’s a past version of me maybe the seagulls plucked out the part of her in me & migrated away with it
but i’d tie my hair back with seaweed just to see more clearly that i belong outside these cabin walls i’d tiptoe on sharp pebbles & broken seashells to reach the pieces of her drowning out of me
i am not an over-salted mangrove floating rootless i belong in the depths of oceans i’ll grasp the feather-soft parts of me that are her & never let her memory dissipate.
