melting salt

taste the melting

salt upon blistering

lips.

grasp at your

ghosts,

set them free.

open your eyes,

betray the light.

you are the meaning

of sorrow.

if it’s not your

pain, then it

has no purpose.

if it’s not your

need,

then it cannot

abide.

you will not make

me into what you

want.

I will not

give you that

part of me:

the unraveling part that

closes its eyes to the

sun is the dampness in

the womb of poverty.

expelled, this withering

twig has become dry.

it holds onto you like

a mother to her babe –

like a child to an

addict mother,

pockmarked with

poison and penance.

so small at these moments –

so unlike what it was before –

an eternity from what it once was –

smoke in a hurricane.

bellow the cry from the

pit of an empty stomach.

anguish in your heart aflame.