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The half-moon cove
and its soft sand-beds
waited with the waves.
Pale yellow grains made
an unexpected stir.
The ixora woman left only that window open
which was facing the hanging bridge where
the fast-moving wing flaps resounded in the silent night
and someone would be returning
from the day’s patrol,
but returning where?
to the round cork floor, and the airy sound
it made when one walked,
the smell of a candle burning,
the crisp turn of pages,
the velvet-clad back.
Talking to shop-keep in his own language,
You don’t win a prize for trying too hard.
i shouldn't compare myself to ghosts,
but maybe i can learn a few things from them.
i told you many things, about the time
i thought i could coexist with ghosts.
i told my ghosts about you
and they agreed you were beautiful.
i thought he was
perfect because he was just like his father.
i am the last living man in my family if you
don't count my father (he disowned me long before
i knew what that word meant.)
i was instead raised in the time of unreliable fathers
& mothers who wanted sons but were cursed with daughters.
i treat myself like a disease
so that i can pretend i am cured.
i was more woman than human.
i learned this at 11 years old.
i wanted to be something like him,
and it was frightening.
Like my soul is ancient,
and stuck in thrift store bones.
I’m finally trimming my family tree;
And hope is inviting Death to tea
Maybe happiness is a weed, pushing through the cracks of the sidewalk
Doused with herbicide because it doesn’t look how we want
There is something wrong with me
I am trapped by imperfection
All of the prophets and teachers say so
I am not sad, not mourning, not trembling in fear. I am angry. My blood is boiling and the steam is coming out of my throat.
I don’t deserve this.
I don’t deserve love
or simple echoing peace.
I am pathetic,
worth less than chalk dust.
You shouldn’t love me.
i thought by now this list would be new; and yet
here we are again, and again, and again.
i am a river
carved into the earth
a thousand generations
before i was born
if i could find that stream, if i made it there perhaps some sense of natal homing would let me swim from there back to the river across the plains.
all my memory is landscaped with home
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