Sometimes we learn to name hurt first
because we are tired of pretending
that everything is ok.
This doesn’t mean that joy is a stranger,
that the opposite of sorrow is bliss,
that the opposite of the opposite
of the intermediary
is sitting upright and making sense.
I don’t have enough flesh to bury
all of the memories
and contradictions
of my childhood.
I don’t have enough time to
watch all of the salty seeds
dispersed from a constant howl
germinate.
I want to build a shelter frame
with my mother’s bones
and the skin of my teeth.
Skeleton scaffoldings are not futile
but they can be bars
if we’re not careful.
I keep forgetting
that the earth itself moves
shatters
liquefies.
Feelings are oscillations
and preconditions,
a constant propagation of
confrontations,
rivers of silt and soil.
thistle breath 