Here’s to the day you said

you could be what she wanted

be fierce enough

closing fear in its locket

lent against old tree bark

when you whispered in her unpierced ear

the words she had been waiting so long to hear

I’m sorry I made you wait

it wasn’t a lack of anything

here I am with my hands full

of every emotion with your name

etched sideways, longways in silver script

you were always the reason for everything

I just didn’t have the language to explain myself

why I lived beneath the earth so long

why I’m a salvaged creature who only

comes out with the moon shine

why I can take you in my arms fiercely and possess

the very air with passion

but I cannot seem to climb out of my own tomb

gather my wits about me long enough

to craft that thing you needed most of all

courage or bravery

a rule book for living in the world

that essential passport to success

I was just a girl with leaves in her hair

who loved you with every inch of her hidden self

I just didn’t know how to be

in this country with these double stitched expectations

gathering like unspun wool about me

it is not a reflection of my truth

to fail you

…

Here’s to the day you said

you could be what she wanted you to be

by leaving

now she can find someone who can give her

the color of the sea found in her eyes

if you lay your hands on her shoulders

if I imagine her warm beneath you

I may finally roar from under the earth with envy

and have what it takes

to lift another up and be human

everyone else knows how

to get by

I try but I find myself

caught by the colors reflecting from the sky

halting my tracks

turning me back to the woods

and the smudge of things

that were