I read a book of your poetry last night,
as the world around me grew dim.
I slowly turned the pages and smiled at the windows
in your words, the way they took me to a room
with vases of flowers, and to a place
where all the versions of myself exist at once.
I saw bits of myself in every stanza,
in every metaphor that draws you in
then carefully sets you back next to a bowl of pears.
I saw my strong self and my fragile self
in your poetry-
I saw the part of me that aches
to write everything, to somehow capture
all the words that are alive, to feel
the solid weight of them in my hand.
Sometimes when I’m writing I feel desperate,
like I’m not moving fast enough,
like all these phrases will drift away
if I don’t lift my hand out fast enough to catch them.
It’s like walking in reverse,
or falling down Alice’s rabbit hole.
The unbreakable darkness that surrounds me,

    Sweya was the daughter of a weaver.
    Few people hold weavers in high regard; they are seen as a necessity, craftspeople like any other. They spin fibers into thread, thread into fabric, fabric into clothes, each step unremarkable, a task any person could perform. But Sweya knew better. She had watched with fascination as her mother’s dye-stained fingers danced, nimble and precise, had seen the beauty in the rich colors, in the elaborate patterns. Each time her mother laid out a new piece of fabric, Sweya knew she had created something no one else could. They were more intricate than the spider webs that stretched across the dew soaked grass, as striking as a sunset sky, as lush as the hillside carpeted with purple bellflowers. To Sweya, a child with a passion for knowledge and understanding, her mother’s craft seemed to surpass the logic of it. And so she regarded herself as, above all else, the daughter of a weaver.

I was never one for poetry,
for hummingbirds and summer sweetness,
but when my mind began to write it’s own
I fell in love with cutting away the excess pieces.
I hadn’t realized the rhythm in these words,
the power they have
when shifted
when splintered from their usual phrases
and placed at the edges of their meanings.
The expanse of an adjective,
the possibilities when you arrange and rearrange,
and exchange one for another,
my eyes began to open
and I fell in love with
falling in love with my language.

I was never one for symphonies
for orchestras and string quartets,
but teach me the melodies
and I’ll find myself in Beethoven,
hand the me the music
and I’ll sink the ink into my fingertips,
stain my veins,
tattoo my shoulder blades with
allegretto, allegretto,
legato, legato,
I don’t speak Italian
but the language of sonatas