day 13: coiled music.

dear pen pal,

I uncross my vocal chords to sing you a song about turtle shells. Did I ever tell you about the time I hunted a fence? Followed it through three cities just to see where it curved. And do you know where it stopped? Then, I tripped on a train track playing a Miles Davis song on a loop. And I forgot all the words, so I just hummed. Dance with me. Grab my dimple and make a wish. Tell me this can last. Tell me how sore you are from breathing in new york city. And then there is that infamous story of onion skin and when you got to that tiny core of spice and unlatched seventeen tears; I counted, so I can cite this number as real. Hey, you are flint. You occur from history. You arrive at my destination and I’ve been lost. How do you reach that key. That note of soprano snuck behind your tongue of alto. I can sing sometimes too. So, I stretch out my freckles like a ribbon of elipses and call out the chorus. And repeat. And repeat. Until you sing along.

an electrical surge of implanted perennial

a tree hides inside

globular structure of light

flick on dim of roots

This is what was waiting. Behind all those Brooklyn traffic lights and spray-painted stop signs: you. We must be reminded of what hides in order to remember what we have been seeking. Get lost in order to be found. Even when it rains, there is enough sun saved up for you to get tan lines beneath a thunderstorm. Don’t be so afraid of love. As a child, you climbed enough trees to grow splinters from your veins. And when you cut yourself while making meals for others, one could certainly measure the sap stored up in your blood to classify your species. To the ones you matter to most, they call you Major Oak. The one who loves you loudest calls you Sacred Fig. Stop running so much. The roots of your gender are endless. You may need to replace ink with lead during this phase of existence. You are in constant revision. Even when all the lights have turned themselves off, there is enough glow in you to survive a forty-two hour blackout. Remain because the ones who came before this one prepared you to grow up.

a moon haiku

under all this moon

the gravel is really clean

and lights up traffic

to speak on tenderness, place a ‘want’ ad and request a mountain.

One cannot plan the space between hours. All of these breaths are abstract performance pieces; you can watch and take notes.

Sip wine while photographing what you think all this might mean. Or. You can walk outside, sit in the earth’s lap and read Adrienne Rich poems to each other to learn about why all this happens.

You may be on a search for love but it’s been stuck to your skin like a birthmark before you were even able to pronounce such a word. And every human has been different. And their music deviated within each strand.

You may find comfort with a human in the darkness of a barroom bathroom, while pretending their body is yours. Their parts.

You may kiss a poet beneath the flickering moonlight on a night birthed just for that kind of moment. And then, write a song that speaks on the pull of doorframes and archived fonts.

Love is a collision of bones. Love is the ISBN you tattoo on your neck because it resembles the lines from your favorite book. Love is when she bats her eyelashes against your wrist and reminds you that scars are actually coordinates, not regret.

 

No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,

sycamores blazing through the sulphuric air,

dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,

our animal passion rooting in the city.

 

                                       ….Adrienne Rich.

 

write into [the] dark

What are you blooming up there in the wind of outer space. I am collaborating with you, moon. On a morning where you refused to exit stage left, I noticed your sleepy yawn. I parted my mouth not quite as wide as yours and we welcomed in each others’ breath. Mine smelled of peanut butter and poetry; I might describe yours as bergamot and soapy. Tell me about the context of your question marks stabbing at your cheeks. What is it you want to say, moon. There is no need for shyness when the earth is our matchmaker and it seems we have been listening to the same song for decades. You are a rhapsody in blue. You are the one who steals moments and there are no photographs that can compete with the stun you exude from all the way up there. Water is like happiness and I am floating my way in rain and pre-dawn dew toward your lust.