I leap out of bed. & night burns at my feet.
Awake. My morning is ashes—naked &
quiet, because the birds have flown to a country
where the trees can dance & my tongue can
only go as far as the border. I’m nothing short
of tragedy, so I drink myself to stupor. My
memories are alcoholic & melancholic. But
my solitude is the sea where I drown myself
into reality. Once. I was a butterfly in this room
where happiness was the smell of peony &
frangipani. Once. I had a mirror & my beauty
was whole. But then, it broke. & broke my beauty.
& like echoes, the shards kept recurring—
under my feet. So I practiced stillness, & silence
as though a god lived in my mouth & I would
not let him out. I sat on a chair in the room of
my wonder, for hundreds of years. & all I could
make of loss is the grace to be hidden from the
unpleasant eyes of the world. Like in mathematics,
my failure is finding x, where x is my dead.
Where x is home. Where x is joy. Where x is the
people I love. Tbh, I have searched & searched.
Every formula, every law, every step along the
way I have taken. The questions, yet, futile. The
equations, lopsided. The weather of my body is
december. My eyes are snowing, there’s a near
storm. & I can feel my joints rattling. Science claims
that my body is water. & can have involuntary actions.
Which is to say, I’m a tsunami waiting to happen. &
I may not be the master of my own sea. & if so, O,
dear wind, let your breeze be gentle. Dear water,
let your waves be kind.