Instead of tears the words come spilling
out of me, and I’ve grown weary from
trying to divert the flow of them.
I’ve grown weary from the thoughts
that fester when I obsess about
interpretation from the outside.
Part of the word shedding is
letting them fall how they want to fall.
I want the words to trust that I will let them
travel where and how they want to.
I love that they are like chameleons.
Taking on the surrounding of my experiences
and producing a custom palette.
The need to describe them is a sun that is
setting on the winter solstice.
The nights will grow longer now.
I will write and let the words be
who they are now.
Because each poem is for me, but also
for the one who is looking to give
their own feelings a voice.
The poem belongs to the one who can
read it and know it is not an instrument for
decrypting what’s in my inside.
It belongs to the one who lets it drip
from the top of their heads and
spread out like a favorite blanket,
warm and familiar.
Sometimes the words are sharp and hot
and charged with unfiltered emotions.
Sometimes they are smooth
like the stones on the riverbed,
and I grow to understand the
allure of skipping them
to see how far they will travel.
It is in the flick of the wrist.
It is in the way my tongue sits
between a chapped lip
and my teeth.
When one eye is squinted I
envision the stone making its
way to her shore;
sparkling in the light of
my real desire;
To be seen.
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