april 18, prompt: for the lovers
i remember being young and on fire
knowing how important it was
that i do everything i can
but now its so loud
how the world is falling apart
(who can i scream at today)
but always being dreamt
and being seeded
(what can i grow towards)
being destroyed yes but always and
right now someone
is making love
(but where are we supposed to make love
our spirits flying everywhere
following droplets of our own blood
into the soil we love most: home)
but do you know the magic
of blood into beloved land
do you know the magic
of righteous blood ill spilt
do you know the eternal binding
of this spell
that claims this earth
for the lovers
strictly
for the lovers
april 19, prompt: occupy power
i sleep standing long like a whale
breath held
a micro-unihemispheric earth
screened on closed eyes
that never fully rest
i dream without resolution
for months on end now, i live afloat
between the crises of before
and the portal just ahead
the loss on my hands form waves
pulled forth as an eclipse with no moon
approaches
i open my heart wider:
this singular grief, but everyone you know
onslaught where there should be apology
“we” believe some of us expendable
when they say unimaginable numbers
it no longer stops the world
we know the whole dance
ignore us, we awaken
punish us, we plead
pull the ground out from beneath us
we occupy our power
that is how we fly heavy over the sea
we crash spectacular, a wave of blessings
a mountain, a holy penetration
piercing the past with a new day
april 20, prompt: reminder
this is your reminder
nothing celestial happens alone
all we really are is
webbing for more
solitude is still with breath
ghosts fill every hall of death
in your drowning ponder
sit with each iteration of your heart
pray for one small blessing
the weight of shore
tongue this petal warily
pending your apology
remember how life tastes
an inhale is worth all of your questions
to keep a self untamed
home a front line
at every point of choice
swim up, slowly
but swim up
up
april 21, prompt: abortion
i was always
insufficient mother material
there is no manna for new mouths
no one to hold up her head
i was broken open earth
planted with invasive seed
i don’t know how to make it right
deep inside me
i can’t do this, not in this world
i made a mistake
or
just this once in all of time
i have this one body
and inside this singular skin
i have to learn everything
about life, god, sacrifice, loss
and survival? and longing?
the no lets me trust the yes
the no makes the yes enough
the no is as mine as the yes
the no is mine
april 22, prompt: defund hate
don’t let them buy your heart
every day they will come
searching for your hunger
hungry for your fear
terrified of your power
don’t let them buy your heart
at every threshold
ask something already growing
to give you the next instruction
root, spread, reach, soften
but don’t let them buy your heart
they can’t afford you baby
they’ll never keep you safe
they cannot give you joy
they don’t know how to play
don’t let them near your heart
april 23, prompt: stretching
i was done before this crisis
coming to tell you goodbye for real
but thru the closed door even i can tell
someone’s in there bleeding —
open yourself up again darling?
at this point, no telling if the skin thin,
the need thick, or the story just so long
you feel owed mountains more than you got
and i been stretching my heart
making a new world for your old wound
between deaths i catch a cooling breath
and offer half of it to you, tomorrow’s kiss
will the rest of the years be such loss
stretching less and less between us
grinning, in pain, exhausted, here
between breaths there comes another death
i turn my heart around, looking for space
to write one more ghost or stranger’s name
i lash out, my grief a heavyweight
and then i remember, you stretched too
april 24, prompt: ode to the caregivers
we think love is crawling
clacking our ribs against the floor
taking anything
giving everything
really its giving care
we think the future is
a landscape of our terror
constant strangers
casting pointless fingers
but mostly its giving care
in conditions of abundance
or wormholes of scarcity
you think you have to be brave
become a frontline warrior
risk reputation
betray your owner’s nation
but the request is just to care
enough to act
enough to change
so — direct action is the collective cry
of the caregiver
and the miraculous is the realm
of the caregivers
and we each survive in the palms
of the caregivers
and we have to stagger the work
of being caregivers
we think love is sacrifice
shaping ourselves for consumption
dazzling moments
strung between dreary years
but the goddess is in the care
the romance is in the care
the beginning and end is in the care
the good life is in the care
and even the ancestors care
sometimes i dance
in ways i can’t anymore
because he holds me
just above the earth
april 25, prompt: this is the way
(as i read this poem, if you are able
please place your hands together
behind your back
as if bound)
death knows a way of slipping the soul from the noose of the body
gentle, before the snap of last breath
death longs to leave it all behind
humans made of the body
a killing weight
(if you are uncomfortable
imagine me screaming shut up
adding my weight to your bones)
no one is meant to die caught
no one is meant to die scared
not even the villains
we are supposed to be held
by more hands than we can name
clearing our wreckage with soft words
as we’re sung into the next life
(now imagine too
you are freezing cold, and hungry)
honey, for we were blessings
laughter, for we were monsters
forgiveness, for we were whole
knowing this is the way
we wail first when the dying
finally reaches us
(do you still hear words
or is your world in your burning shoulders
your pulsing wrists?)
we wail down the cornerless world
as a first response, standing next to the grievers, documenting everything
we collapse under the unbearable truth
tsunami the pain along until everyone is felled by this deathwork of lost souls
(and if the words can’t reach
through the pain
through the crisis
i become merely one who binds)
we need a new name for this crime
killing a people, one at a time
bound, buried, breath, bullet
beloveds, just recognizable
bomb sniper vaporize starve
every day, for a global audience
escalating ruthlessness
(breathe —
as long as you can breathe
there is a way)
(deeper
than
that)
and every day, a global movement
escalating solidarity
beloveds i see my people
love shine humanize nourish
we need a new name for this time
the shedding, the phoenix years
the reunification, the mycelial turning
masks era — the age of decolonization
(so how would you get free
but how would you get free?
but how will you get free?
this is the way)/this is the way