Her story is not mine
yet our lives are so intertwined
I sometimes forget
we are not one person.
Fireworks, loud and colors and smoking
smells, an assault on the senses,
yet she looks to me and asks
“Are you happy?”
“Yes,” I tell her, “Look, that green one is my favorite.”
“Do you like me still?”
“I love you.”
“Are we still the same?”
“Of course.”
Sometimes I forget
your mother is a child.
you know this now
but only recently and
I worry
like a mother
though I am still a child
playing in the fucking dirt
but the dirt is good and cool
and you join me down there
and we grab handfuls of the stuff
and let it filter through our upturned palms
so that only rolly-pollies, junebugs,
and ants remain
and we become goddesses
in this world we have created.
A tear falls from my right eye and
I don’t know why
but soon there are
more of them and
the dirt becomes
mud and washes away down the
street into the
gutters through the
pipes into the
river back up
into the sky
and now
it is raining and I
am still crying and the rain streaks down your cheeks elbows and legs
so that you are crying too but everything
is alright now because
we are the same again.
I don't look too often
I mostly listen
I hear rarely
but when I do
my body stops
humming, buzzing, whirring,
the heart meditates
for those savory five seconds.
I breathe in an infinite breath
a speck of you remains
in the vastness
a place where
We are both allowed and
We are both loved.
