day eight.

ai.
-
i love you like

cardamom 

and bare feet,

and momma's voice,

and fall.

day seven.

eva.

-

my sister was born

on friday the thirteenth,

with blood in her mouth.

she wouldn't take our mother's milk,

stopped breathing twice in her sleep,

nona read scripture over her 

the entire first night.

aunt drina says

she didn't want this life.

she's too attracted to high places

and hot things; fascinated by 

sharp edges. we watch her

in the bath because she

likes to see how long

she can hold her breath. 

we love her,

knowing we'll 

lose her.

she's thirteen now,

and compelled by fire.

nona stays up 

praying all night.

aunt drina and uncle luca

tie bells on all the doors,

sprinkle cinnamon in

the part of her hair.

she falls asleep with the 

windows open, and

wakes up in the fields.

they say she didn't 

want this life. 

day six.

when your father left. 

-

your mother 

shacked up

with a milkman.

but somehow, that

didn't stop you from

growing up with holes

in your bones. 

her cardiologist boyfriend

never did much to mend

your fractured heart. 

the chef

couldn't fill

the hole 

in the pit

of your 

stomach.

the empty spaces

of your father's 

absence,

always void. 

day five.

an exchange of regret. 

-

we were an amalgam of apologies. 

"i'm sorry," she told me one morning,

dawn light grey on her cheekbones,

"i'm sorry i made you carry my mistakes

around under your tongue."

"i'm sorry," i told her on the train.

my nails were painted yellow,

because i missed the sun.

"i'm sorry i left your shame

out on my laundry line. i never

meant to air your secrets."

"i'm sorry i rubbed salt on your 

wounds," she says under an 

oak tree in the park. "i thought it 

would keep them from becoming

scars."

"i'm sorry i cursed your dead mother,"

i whispered, "and put salt in your tea.

i just wanted to see if you cry anymore."

"i'm sorry, i'm just sad."

"i'm sorry, i'm just tired."

"i'm sorry, i just miss you."

"i'm sorry, i'm just too

sorry to do this anymore."

and one day, our apologies

ran out.

day four.

a death story.

-

you have romanticized death.

you need to know that it won't be beautiful,

it won't feel like flying, you won't be at peace.

there will be no moment of clarity 

before you hit the ground,

swallow your tongue, 

watch your own brains hit the wall.

you'll just be a terrified girl,

bleeding out on the bathroom

floor.

they won't remember you for it. 

day three.

the verdict. 
-

cancer is a curse word in our family

a vulgar blasphemy, a profanity,

a death knell no one

with our surname has survived,

we shrink from it.

naima slapped herself in the face

when they told her it had come to you,

let out a sound like a dying animal, 

she was wounded,

mortally. 

"we can't get away from it,"
she screams, tries to tear
at her face before they stop her.

"it's following us."

day two.

tale of a journeyman.
-

your father sowed a restless seed in you,

curling fingers, migrating tongue, 

you were born fidgeting.

how did he manage to weave his 

inconsistency into your dna?

it isn't fair that you were born into

your mother's arms a wanderer,

the soles of your feet itching.

i don't know how

to teach you to stay. 

day one.

april fool.

-
"you fooled me,"
she says into the receiver,
lips slick with pink lipstick
and disappointment.

by now, his name has begun to sound
like a dial tone, like a busy signal,
she doesn't remember what it was like
not to miss him, not to be waiting on him.

his voice is just the right amount
of apathetic, and her nervous heels
leave scuff marks on the kitchen floor.

"april fool's," he says.
the dial tone hurts her ears.

april.

thirty poems in thirty days. join me?