with curiosity, comes the slow growth into a body too small for all this

dead daughters gorge themselves on pomegranate and lemons to cope

I drag my broken pieces along threadbare roads made of bedsheets

Those celestial Nymphs dance across the sky in their father’s arms.

The spirographed school of fish has no I directing its body’s motion

What use are eyelids when I see you in my sleep?

No biracial child needs to live in chronic fear of being shamed for representing their culture.

And that you were beautiful. He told you again and again that you were beautiful. But you just wanted it over and done

which is to say bob is still a dirty word, but then what teenager doesn’t venture the occasional cuss?

Return the nose to the eyeline. Move the lips unnaturally

The park is full of clutter and broken dreams.

I never know what to do with overwhelming mercy. / I always catch the first flight away from home.

Decoding the symbology of aloneness
Reading the reference texts of connection

Across from the side already assigned in the nightmare late-for-school gym

may you never have to hear a prayer on behalf of healing or sickness

digits on verge of subtraction, negative numbers on the spine of the horizon. devil.