Your mother was a garden fairy
and your father was a talking manatee.
You will have twenty children
and live in a Jimmy Choo.
Your first born will be a champion pumpkin eater,
Your last born will upset the balance of the universe.
I see you're overwhelmed by your destiny,
One day, when you're queen of the ancient Scots, you will be more confident.
You will develop a knack for feng shui.
Your partner will leave you
And come back with flowers.
The rivers will course with the voice of your best friend from 4th grade,
and the mountains will stand silent like your grandfather.
You will caution the winds to aspire to little to no funny business.
You are a witch, a heathen.
Your afterlife will be one of unfinished business.
God will smile down on you and turn away.
You will ascend to the universe and become a black hole.
Your children will see the twinkle of the north star and forget about you.
The Fortune
Saudade
​scattered across continents
distance highlighted by numbers
years, eyes, words
people i haven't spoken to since there was hard, dry dirt under my feet
and arroz e feijão ready for lunch
blood is thicker than water
harder to scrub from your hands
from your memories
nine years forgotten
entrusted to a man nobody knew,
a man named violence.
i grew in that time.
my body grew, with constant reminders of the distance
echoing in my changing curves
but the world stayed still
days bled into years
and the first thing released from the slow muck
of a repressed childhood were my elbows
i crawled out to the other side
still alone
still slow
but breaking the frame
and now continents are closer than ever
tides pulling us together
love is slowly filling the void that fear cratered
