cleanse.

Breathe. For twenty-one days, you proved to your body you could go without. You gave up ritual of caffeinated steamed lover pressed into french kiss glass with almond or oat milk stirred flesh. Throat mourned for days into weeks, yearning for that feeling of burnt tongue because some things are too hot for patience.

For twenty-one days, you went without fermented drunk. Poem’d in bars with breath of seltzer and lime. Did shots of question marks and annotations, flirting with humans housing whiskey within the curves of their cavities. You realized booze is not always necessary to loosen your limbs and fall in lust.

For twenty-one days, you dug fork into enough chick peas to refer to skin tone as legume’d. There was no cheese or bread or animals. Turned the inside of your body into an ocean of Brooklyn water.

For twenty-one days, you reflected. Forgave.  Told the ghosts to gather elsewhere. Let in new ones. Let go of patterns of fear. Forgave your secrets and spoke them out loud. Threw away runners; recognized the beauty in remaining with an/other. Found new entrances to your body. Changed the locks and swept up the parade of winter outside your bones to prepare for the roots of spring to expand.