I Have

Quick, run.

Find Nyx.

Her ear is infected
again.

She’s running away.
Brothers follow
into my Grand Library.

I imagine
this is how Alexandria
must have looked
after the fall.

Eldest manages to grab her.

Brother, let me—

No. I got this.

Please, let me—

NO.

I watch him
struggle and sway
until she is subdued,

as the room begins to rumble.

I walk toward them.

Poor kitty.

She looks filthy.

Couldn’t fuck you up
if she tried.

Salivating,
tilted little head,
dirtied up and wet.

She turns it
to the right,
slightly up.

The walls begin to crack.

Brother, let me he—

I can do thi—

I know, but let me—

NO.

I stand still,
the hard rocking unsettling me.

I look up.

BROTHER.

Part of the ceiling,
or whatever held above us,
collapses.

I go to grab
the soothed feline.

Brother pulls brother
and they run behind me.

We are so close
to the exit.

The library opens
its stomach.

I grab for something.
Anything.
Something pretending
to hold.

Younger trips.

Oldest falls back with him.

And as he falls,
he clings onto me.

I blame myself
for the trip.

Somehow,
it’s always my fault.

And I don’t know why I—

STAND UP STRAIGHT.

take—

DON’T FALL.

the—

STAY UP.

bla—

They keep shouting.

And I say to myself:

DON’T FALL.
STAY UP.
YOU HAVE TO HOLD THEM.
THIS IS YOURS.
HOLD THEM.
DON’T FALL.

What if you just…

let go?

so dizzy
this feeling

this holiness
of letting go

of the pole.

I open my arms.

Nyx rises.

And Night falls.

Everywhere around me.

The library has collapsed.

And nothing.

I am falling.

My brothers have dissolved
into air,
or something less,
or sublime.

I can’t understand.

I am elated.

Everything—
nothingness—
is so much.

I feel at ease,
like something is sorting
within myself.

I understand
what was destruction

and what was desire.

I don’t understand ho—

I am falling in the dark.

I am alone
in the dark.

How am I breathing?

I begin to forget.

I start to cry.

This feels familiar.

This is what it’s like to die.

As the panic courses through me,
I hear a whisper:

Grieve this.

Eventually,
you will forget
the shape
of what was never yours.

You are alone,

and that is not ill.

You are not empty.

You have.

The heartbeat in my head
slows slightly.

I have.

I word it quietly,
almost as if to keep it.

To remember.

I close my eyes

and feel what it would be
to embrace myself.

Cho iza.

Possible Things

I don’t know if it was so much a fantasy

as it was a dream

that you found your way

out of this forest

that harmed you.

Or at the very least,

that you transformed it

into something livable—

a place where your hands

could grow

something beautiful.

You once made beauty here.

I loved seeing it.

And I’m not saying you do not now,

because you have made yourself

into your own,

even in the bindings,

even in the bramble.

But I see you

bending this wilderness

into something distinctly yours,

a clearing cut open

by your will,

a work that becomes

your finest one.

And once it is done,

the pain rooted there

will no longer call to you,

or to me,

or to anyone

wandering within it.

It will be yours.

A home of bark and breath.

A shelter you have grown.

A place that cultivates

all your abundance.

A place where light reaches

what once only knew shade.

There,

where you finally feel

acceptance and love

in the very ground

where you once believed

there was none.

I dream up lives

for the people I love.

Where they do what they love,

albeit congruent

with some reality

that they could bloom from

if only they would allow themselves—

the same as I dream for myself.

The lives we could grow

if only we allowed

what is tender in us

to root.

It is not wrong

to wish on possible things.

You cannot have everything,

I know.

But you can give yourself

something.

Enough

for spirit to whisper:

I deserved this.

I gave myself

some good in this life.

Enough

to give some good

back to the world.

I lived authentically.

I fed myself truth

like water from the earth,

and I was satisfied.

I want

and care

and dream

and love the people

that I love

to have what they deserve.

But I am old enough

to understand

that I cannot give them

what is not in my hands

to give.

I can only love,

and wait,

and hope to be met

with reciprocity

somewhere in this living world.