preservation

In that former innocence
a second sun bloomed
in my heart, and I
tucked dreams
and hopes

within my small fist
a moth within-
I held it
tense,
in careful regard.

Sometimes
I would tear, slightly
a ghostly wing
having
no space
in a hand to
move:

I shook or would
startle.

And so I began
when it was night
and I could hear the
urgency silenced
day-to-day

to still squirrel away
each fold of brain, the
tender stomach
delicate bones of a toe/
all beneath my pillow
where I would remember
whenever
I could rest

and today, there
I hold my hand
in sleep, reaching
feeling
something
alive

in my hands.

the crash

Truth is to forget underwater
how the waves crash
beneath the seam

how the waves crash
truth in seconds
how under

the shower I crash
how in dreams I
collide with colossus

and tragedy and conquer/
uninhibited, un-able to
drive seed to

stem. Truth: I forget
to crash beneath
and end up above

the waves in
love thinking this
is who I become now

like summers I swam
between mangroves and hot
sea surging, that perfect

storm on the horizon – I love
so deeply in truth
underwater in the crash
of waves: how the seam

defines if we will live or die –
how wide my wilderness.