PennyDiamond

I remember you; An invocation, a declaration, a curse.  I summon you. I bind you. I name you my past.  Stand. Feet planted at the center of the nearest fault line, ley line, or graph line and make peace with these charges: I remember you. I remember you as you were; Counterfeit and small.  I remember you as you promised; A garden. A refuge. A forest.  I remember myself as you never were; Liminal, transcendent, home.  I remember my desperation and anger.  I call them. I bind them. I name them reckoning.  Stand at the doors of their temples and burn. 

You left me where your empathy ran dry Evaporating on the rocks of a desert I have always lived in Leaving traces, like mineral rings Of your layered shirts and quiet anger Of shared survival and moldy coffee I write "I miss you" on my legs And your name on the list of men I have nightmares about The words "too much" "too crazy" "unwell" rattle in my head And I remind myself I cannot hold men made of gas light

springtime is here in this tower we live in and its lonelier here than it seems because everyone's smaller in ivory halls and food doesn't last any longer i write smaller talk smaller breathe smaller in here and the food doesn't last any longer and these people i've known for all of my life haven't left they're still trying to kill me

Be careful claiming God incites your stories Because poems can be misread And it is likely that your children will misread them

I learned my metaphors and rhyme schemes In a sea of broken glass I drew strength from all the ghosts that grew In other peoples pasts I left my church, I left my people With their pedestals and pain And I can rhyme my way through trauma Born by women without names And when I left and there was nothing But wisps of clouds and space I prayed to lovers I'd imagined And used knife blades as a brace But now I'm sitting in this city With its cigarettes and smoke And I wash these wounds in rainbows And the love you said you'd broke I am light, I am refraction You can't cleave the sky in two So keep your glory and salvation And the name I never

On loving glass women Glass men And glass gods On welding your hands To curved iron rods On fruit made of sunlight That burns when you eat On wars that you fight With shattered retreats On grey trees And grey neighbors Grey houses Grey time On boundaries of smoke And holograph lines On the girl made of starstuff And the boy forged in coal On babies held hostage On shards in your soul On trauma that's bitter And trauma that's sweet On candy nails And broken feet

There's a space that begs for poems But I have no blood to write in And I'm too young to choke to death on broken dreams And I'm drowning in these memories But I have no blood to fight them So I think that I should probably go to sleep But I'll sit here in the space you've made From poetry and rhythm And I'll try not to feel the weight between these notes And on Sunday they will talk about How Jesus healed the broken But they'll never stop to ask who crushed my feet