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But kings always came back. So the sister-brothers knew to wait. The sister-mothers knew someone would hear them. Once upon a time. And they’d be found.
just stayed / there / in her moon world / doing moon things
take care of them please.
I think of how a truth could take us apart from each other. How tight my throat has to be for us to stay together. How once a bird learns to fly from its cage, it stays in the hallway. And you can’t ever put it back.
What I am: a sack of body that I lug around. Air, water, a little bit of moon. A list of chores waiting to be completed. A bank account in my name. A check from the government. Free lunch. A clothing stipend every three months. Watered and (sometimes) fed so the money will keep coming in. The top bunk of the bunk bed. A house of wails. A house of the forgotten. Aunty-full. Aunty-less. A body and a shadow. A tiptoe across the floorboards. A fingerprint on glass. A small heartbeat, suspended in air. I can take up such little space, I promise. I can be loved. It won’t cost you much. You won’t
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reasons why people go—
why did we raise our kids so far away from what is ours?
And we were made to be each other’s perfectly stupid bitches, fastened to each other, forever.
Our city is full of Used-to-Bes, of people who came from somewhere else, whose degrees don’t matter here, who check out groceries and pump gas and return to their single room in a rented apartment, to a framed photo of them in their cap and gown holding a degree above their bed.
Is a sister still a sister when a mother dies?
being his feels better than being alone.
She’s not even that pretty. And I’m not even a little bit pretty, so it doesn’t feel like an insult.
Can you make it last? I whisper into his chest as he sleeps and he stirs slightly, his eyebrows creasing at his forehead. This feeling. Can you make it last?
And I need them to know this, how, long ago, I put my heart inside their hearts. How I was born this way, belonging to them, trying to follow their breath. How I’ve given them each a slice of it, how there isn’t any of my own heart in my own body, how close I am to breaking all the time.
