I was of the water, you were of the air, and we both hungered for a place we didn’t remember.

How many shadows to become whole? How many cracked shadows & shadowed cracks?

I love the chanting of Veni Creator Spiritu, the statue of the Virgin Mary with her smooth, serene face & her outstretched arms —her courage

The beat of the band becomes hands on your hips, & you forget about gravity.

Look at all these people around us. Each with a set destination, a place where people are waiting for their arrival: families, jobs, brunch

Papa says, where we come from, no one has the luxury of self-loathing—they are too busy rising from rubble & building castles with what lies

Whether you stay or not, —people are born, people die, people eat, drink, sing in the shower, clip their nails...

I’ll whisper, I love you—to myself, on his behalf.
 I’ll whisper, I love you—to my noisy, careless father,

I can’t stop imagining her, a child asleep on soft pillows with puffy clouds. Blue & purple butterflies with glittery wings.

I wanted to be the kind of girl who’d steal smokes from her mother’s purse & booze from her father’s cabinet.

I don’t always know who I am, but I know I’m not the kind of girl who can be contained in thick black eyeliner & lace underwear.