i have asked you, i have chased you,
i have received you and i have heard you:
i have followed you around
with an open heart in my open hands
like a penitent.
i have invited you, i have cherished you,
i have bathed you in wine
and affection: i have burnished your heart
with heat, and sex, and time.
i have waited, willingly, for hours, for weeks,
and even years now, as i look back:
i have offered, religiously,
parts of myself that cannot truly be given away.
i have called you, i have sung to you,
i have begged and i have scolded you;
at least this time, when
your back is silhouetted, momentary,
in my doorway, i can say
i have done what can be done.
and i am done.

i want my tombstone to say,
she tried

when uncertainty is the strongest emotion--
doubt chasing lack finding questions--when uncertainty
is the rock in my stomach, the bile
of self-hatred burns right through it.
there is no doubt in my mind what your opinion of me is
or will be.

i want my tombstone to say, she
tried, and failed, but tried.
that somewhere on the earth there will be
a monument to failure
is almost
satisfying

at this point, it is only selfishness, it is only
a selfish desire to be wanted
that helps me think
that you could want me. but
i want my tombstone to say
she tried.

i am a desert, parched and shimmering,
reflective, disruptive, eroding.
i am a long journey from east to west, a path
of fire through an aching sky:
charted over wind-tossed hills,
topography of choice and chance.
i am larger than your imagination, deeper
than your prediction, wilder than
your fantasy: there will never be an end, of me.
i creep up your skin, grit and crust,
swarm between your flesh and your clothing
till you crawl with me, grind with me,
bleed for me.
i am a desert, fierce and gloating,
and i do not need a reason for this rage.

cold toes on the cold floor
the bathroom smells vaguely like bile
there is eyeliner striped on the sink

this is
all that i own

image is inherited: first came the body
and then our ideas of it,
execution before substance, effect
before planning

when i wake in the dark and the cold
i feel strong, buoyed by
desire, reaction, intensity

(add illness to
the sense of ownership i feel
over my body)

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of my body

or my voice

so i will speak, and

i will act.

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of truth

or of truly loving

so i will befriend, and entrust,

and adore.

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of potentiality

or growth or even strain

so i will push, and i will work,

and i will sweat. 

because this year,

i will not be afraid.