This must be hell– reliving my biggest mistake over and over again.

it doesn’t hurt any less with the passing of time

Sweet girl, who taught you that you are not worthy of your own love? Don’t you know that once you’ve realized your worth, you are infinite?

don’t let them hide you from your own light

April

it is the most serene
madness.
the smallest oceans fall
from the sky,
and the wind extends her arms, inviting
everything to dance with her.
the rooftops sing
with the skin cells
of the sea.
like the bathing earth beneath
my feet, i am
saturated with life.
my layers have clung
together.
i am now one.

We were never completely in sync. You were the lightning and I was the thunder: always right behind you, never quite fast enough.

you never walked next to me

Even When You’re Here

language fails to express
the most profound darknesses of the heart–
the small cracks between the fertile soil of the
soul where only God goes.
There is no one where I am,
seeing through these eyes or
hearing through these ears, or
feeling the darkness in my stomach.
In all that I am,
I am utterly, darkly, alone.

Space Boy

you were my space boy.
i didn’t see that you were light
years away because i was
transfixed by the nebulas in
your eyes.

you were my space boy.
i didn’t mind that your kisses
came through the arms of
reaching stars, because they
tasted like the Milky Way.

you were my space boy.
it didn’t matter to me that you
only touched me with your fingertips,
because I loved hearing about
what the earth looked like
through your helmet.

you were my space boy, but
i tried to ignore the fact that
there wasn’t room for me in
your shuttle–
that all those stars must make
my eyes seem so dim.

you were my space boy, but
it is hard to love
a space boy when there are
heavens between
infinity and earth.

I walked away from her believing I’d never be enough; I walked away from him knowing I deserved more.

i’m learning that i deserve someone who deserves me

Small Little Rocks

souvenirs from where i’ve
consumed.
sometimes they pile up and
build little homes inside me.
sometimes i can unclench
long enough to throw them
back into the water.

4/24/1915

i think I was born with
the taste of their blood in my mouth;
their story intertwined with mine
long before i was old enough
to start writing it.

the word genocide
passed down through generations–
an unwanted inheritance
laying heavy on our lips and
etched into the lines on
our palms.

a word small enough to hold
in the palms of your
hands holds the history
of a nation.
a word comprised of the lives
of 1.5 million, written in sets of
footprints in desert sands.

we are a people defined
by genocide.
we are the generations born
from the blood spilled before
us– a people who will fight to
have their history
bloom bloody red
with a stem of thorns.

their battle,
their blood, their lives
are now ours.
There is no their.
We are our.

Look where you want to go, not where you’re afraid to go.

my dad told me this when i was learning to ride my bike and i always chant it to myself when i’m anxious