keep coughing up smoke from all the deaths you have died.
— therapy
she asked
'you are in love
what does love look like'
to which you replied
'like everything i've ever lost
come back to me'
i will crawl for white beauty.
eat my arms.
barter my legs (make my thighs into altars of grief).
for
skin that does not drink night.
hair that is not angry.
body that is not soil.
i place curses on my flesh
call them diets.
tell my ancestors
they are ugly.
howl at my nose until it bleeds.
run my heart across my teeth, repeatedly.
i am dying.
to be beautiful.
but beautiful.
is
something.
i
will never
be.
— by the time we are seven
both.
i want to stay.
i want to leave.
i am three oceans away from my soul.
— lost
i lied.
i told you i was not afraid to love you. then i walked
away.
and
loved you.
— i have spent my whole life alone. loving you | when we chose fear
if we must
both
be right.
we will
lose
each other.
— exile
i don't play attention to the
world ending.
it has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.
stay is a sensitive word.
we wear
who stayed
and
who left
in our skin forever.
— sojourn
in our own ways
we all break.
it is okay
to hold your heart outside of your body
for
days.
months.
years.
at a time.
— heal
soon
the moon will come from my lips
and
you will not remember your name.
— oshún
'no'
might make them angry
but
it will set you free.
— if no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than your anger
what i never
learned
from my mother
was that
just because someone desires you.
does
not mean they value you.
desire is the kind of thing that
eats you
and
leaves you starving.
— the color of low self esteem
if someone
does not want me
it is not the end of the world
but
if i do not want me
the world is nothing but endings.
i loved you
because
it was easier
than
loving myself.
— runaway
as a child
there was either
books
or
pain.
i chose books.
— how i became a writer
you ask
your heart
why it is always hurting.
it days
'this is the only thing you will allow me to say to you.
the only feeling you are willing to feel.'
her love
was the only medicine.
the only.
medicine.
that ever worked. and this is why.
she left.
she
wanted yours to work.
too.
— healer
why is the moon
full.
is it carrying the whole world
too.
— daughter
#salt.