crisscross

your features don’t contort when you cry.

tears skate down your face until they get caught

on the side of your nose 

or  the tip of your chin

Inspired by Jesmyn Ward

I wish I could tell you how I mourn your innocence,

how I pray for a shield, 

I clung to my baby blanket that wrapped around my limbs. my limbs, small and swollen, cushioned by my mother's organs. I was warm, I clung to the insulation of two beating hearts. 

cut in half in a ceramic bowl, the edge of the spoon carves out the meat from the middle, sawing at the membrane that encases the pulp.

the contents of the atlantic 

are tucked behind my ear. 

the other isles have oozed into my hair

parasitcally working their way down my throat

Disregard the misconceptions of hostility in the act of lying. It is just a mechanism brought to us first by Darwin. A bird nips at the soil, her beak raw from the tragic repetition of giving and giving.