In those days, she danced through the meadows chasing butterflies and searching for rainbows. There was little the world couldn’t offer her, little that couldn’t be found. Now, the rain streaks down her windows, refracting bloody sunlight. The stars don’t seem so welcoming anymore, not when their silver light glistens through her tears.
They tell her to march to the end with boldness and bravery, head held high, chest forward. But as her reality tips and crumbles, her bones rattle...

our losses leaves shiny trinkets for the crows
gleaming silver melting on the sidewalk
our tears splatter to the floor and erupt into
dizzying droplets solidifying into chains
and pendants like mourning doves
we wear our grief around our necks
opening our empty hands for all to see
this is poverty a heart devoid of emotion
but the crows love to pick through the rubble
of broken relationships and crumbled souls
of the collision between life and death
iridescent feathers...

today she finds the feather on her driveway
dark and grey and translucent blue
floating down from a crystal clear sky
she twists the remnant of life in her hands
and she understands why the doves mourn, why
they release haunting calls from telephone wires
the world coats her fingers with death
and she learns to grieve when her cat
stumbles down the stairs on creaky joints
and her mother says with teary eyes
“i don’t know if he’ll survive...

today my mother shows me photographs
of my childhood self
brimming with infancy and innocence
so pure and beaming with joy
laughter, i see, lives in children
in their bright eyes and wide smiles
in their voices that coo
“i love you to the moon and back”
and my childhood self knew nothing
of war and hatred and forgotten promises
my childhood self knew only of
perfection and whispers of love
of dabbling in dreams and wishing
upon stars shh...

she braids her heritage, triplet rivers of blood
france germany scotland, all united within her
german floats off her tongue, but her name is french
and the names of her ancestors are scottish

french and dutch but no german braids

her cousin wallows in the french language
but bonjour never sounds right on her lips
she prefers guten morgen or perhaps hallo

tonight she twists her hair into lace braids
leaves holes for her soul to escape through
she dreams...