and all this time we were paragraphs

“a paragraph was a fence that held words” –sherman alexie

My mother is a paragraph that encloses my childhood. My brainstem is a paragraph housing [former] addictions and anger managements. New Jersey is a paragraph to the epic novel around it: New York City. My ankles are a paragraph around the roads I’ve twisted my heels into.

Indent.

Skip a line.

Leave room for swelling and misspellings. Suddenly paragraph is overrun by errors and it is too fat too long too many run-ons and it needs to slim down. Starve this paragraph–write it out in less words. Girdle it away gone.

This paragraph is loose and it needs more transitions and locations; how far along are the muscles? This paragraph is written beside its own translation which is really just the scars of what it was before all the edits. How do you label this paragraph? What is its genre? Is it academic or informal? What is its sequence function thesis statement?

My hair is a paragraph to the noise I want to be making. My belly is a paragraph of uncertainty and dissatisfaction. Some of my paragraphs have birthed poems flash fiction erotic remedies to the yawn of schedules. None of my paragraphs have been written about.



I am that fence that wooden beamed paragraph holding it in holding it in until all that is left are the holes peeking their way out.