#ahw1

better than I knew myself

my heart cracked.

When I said you didn’t,

you asked for my trauma as evidence

to prove the understanding of my own soul,

to prove that I was there enough to feel something

that I had never told you.

You see what you love—

how much more could I ask for?

But I keep parts of me hidden,

and sacred,

like this one.

You do not know me better than I know myself,

and, some days,

Let men avoid my name like it will curse them Let them dance around to recall me by anything other than what my mother called me I pray you stumble over every 6th syllable I hope the words your write cramp your hand every time the letters begin to look to much like me Treat me as though I am nameless to soothe your guilt

For every new name I find for myself, Tuesday Sunlight Air May you learn it, as self preservation May you allow each word to conjure my image Frost Daisies Light

Each day I wake, I am new I am every tongue beat and sigh I am every syllable and the rest in between

I will deprive your blame of a home

You forget that the power of a name depends on who wields it

You curse yourself

While I respond to the crackle of fire, a quiet laugh, the rustling of wind through the leaves, may you continue to create your own bogeymen and witches from my existence

 I will call myself by a language you cannot speak

but what I really mean is,

“I have seen you truly live

I don’t want to learn to conjure water just to make you believe my well isn’t empty.

It is empty.

It is empty for anything that does not replenish me back. It is empty for anything that doesn’t allow my roots to rest. It is empty for you.

The last drop? That’s for me.

I’m sure they’ll say I was cruel for my half-truths; that I was selfish for coveting what should be given. I’m sure their disappointment will be weaponized to wound me; my name will bitter on their tongues.

When they tell you of the dangers of magic, they only fear that you’ll discover how to use it for yourself.

And so is the nature of magic: there is no loss without gain, no darkness without light.

and believe

I hung the moon

and the stars,

but what they don’t ask

is how long I sat

in the darkness,

alone,

before creation

put me on a schedule

with its heavenly bodies

I supposedly hung

from the ceiling of the universe.

And if someone asked

how much time passed

since I sat

in that space between

what I was

and what I am,

I would become very far away

and tell them,

“a long while.”

I trace my finger in the sky,

making connections

between stars

that will never align.

like I was just born into this flesh

I want to go home so very much, but I don’t know what it’s like to have one place to go for comfort and refuge.

So I pack my bag, always ready to be gone before the sun crests high enough for anyone to see that the shine my eyes is not a hangover, but a particular heartbreak of losing a home I had just come to know.

I knew I was cursed with a tender heart when I let a family of black widows live outside my door.

I checked on them, watching the children, from tiny, blackened pearls, grow into their bitter poisons and elegant limbs.

And I knew perhaps it was unwise to let something so unpredictable and volatile share my hearth, but I saw in them myself: a walking warning to stay away-- flagged red where I am most vulnerable.