what i am with you: a thousand half-spilled apologies, retching at your mouth. the guilt of me seeps through your floorboards, i am what makes you creak, puddles in your basement and makes everything smell of age, mildew, wet. is it regret if i miss the violence i did not cause.
the better angels of my nature have tried to rule: kept sweet, keep sweet, keeping sweet. we have appropriated every culture more domineering, more patriarchal, more silencing than our own. we have bared naked logs of spite, religion, gender, anger, built a hell and called it home. i was raised in the density of your forgotten hopes.
still. when you build a home of kindling, one of your children will learn to burn. you are my kindling. is it love if i embrace the power you made me find.