i'm too tame to be a wildflower

peach

everything leaves it's fingerprints on me
peaches bruise easily, but my skin is
covered with words that people have
said and unspoken looks of judgement
I fear as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown weaker
and the bruises are temporary, they fade
yet under the surface, they stay with me forever

childlike

The little kids pray for every ambulance
Every test score, every friend and foe
I only draw near when my world falls apart
Maybe that is why he wants us to stay
His children, so that He may be the first
person we run to in all circumstances

I don’t take as many photos as I once did
I’ve stopped capturing the beauty around me
But subtly, I still see it. In ladybugs, in rainbows,
In my cat curled in the sunlight, in red grapes
Freshly washed, in my husbands smile,
In the water in my father’s swimming pool.
I don’t see the beauty in me. But outward
I bend my love everywhere else

the bite of death

I thought about death driving home today
I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately
Not as an enemy, not as a friend
Just as a thing to happens, like shoelaces
That come undone after a while, like
Gas tanks running empty, like train tracks
Becoming rusted—it’s inevitable.
The inevitability doesn’t soften the fear,
Just softens the bite

I’ll never be a full moon
I’ll never be able to give
All of me to you

born to bleed the sea

Some believe they’re born to breathe it
But I’ve never been worthy of such
I’m a lily floating on the surface, petals
Nearly skimming both the frisk
Breeze and the ripples on skin
Belly up to the moon—new, waning, waxing,
Half, and full—the beacon of light
Dripping through my veins
I’ve looked to the stars and thought
That’s where I belonged, but I
Always felt empty in space,
The water is my home, a part of me
That cannot be emptied, for I
Was always born to bleed the sea