Mother said

I was born January

because I love things

that start with hope and

then die beautifully.

My heart is the blue lick

of fire abandoned in a winter—

a woman’s sigh dressed as a flame,

a boy’s cry sewn into the throat of God.

I keep it hidden

beneath my ribs like a scandal—

each beat a matchstick

I strike against memory.

There are nights

I wear my grief like silk stockings,

run my fingers through the static

of your name,

still humming

on the pillowcase.

The saints won’t touch me now.

They smell smoke

and think sin.

But really,

it’s just the ghost of warmth

asking for a body.

I once kissed a man

who tasted like 

Sunday and funeral.

He held me like 

a broken vase

someone still couldn’t throw away.

I wrote poems in the 

shape of his spine,

but he read them

like warnings.

Now every time

the wind opens its mouth,

I flinch.

It sounds too much like him

leaving again.

So, I talk to the knife

I don’t use.

Call her Darling and

feed her sugar.

This is my love language.



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