I want to turn sixteen again
Cry and rip my hair out and
fantasize
of leaving a brain matter portrait on my mother’s wall

I want to feel full again
I hate this empty
I hate this light

I am perpetually in a hospital,
prodded
By doctors who do not pretend to care
Initials in my side, memorializing love I
never felt

This light is harsh
It cuts me
Leaves nothing to the imagination
I may not escape it
I may not turn back to when I was
so young,
Free

No
I was never free
but that was a time when i fought the chains
cut deep into my wrists
I screamed out, cursing my captors,
Cursing myself

If I had seen people in the distance then
I would have called out
I would have screamed for them

Now I only reach toward the sky
Toward this sun that is killing me and sustaining me
I am a pyre
remaining unburnt
Unused by those who flee from me

My body lies twisted in my roots
Held gently
Firmly
unescaping

the combativeness of its youth gone
The thrashing and gnawing long silenced
slowly, I collect her
weave her body into something more than itself

When the sun twists
Becomes warm and wide again
We will wave at the people who hide beneath
us,
seeking shelter

Her arms will move again,
through me,
When it rains we will weep together
Weep for the
ignorance
of those who never got to know better

When she went,
she wasn’t ready to stop
I go together,
with her, now

We will live forever,
kissing the faces of children
Lining the pages of leaf books

For now, we are dead together
waiting for the time that will allow for more
Her bones crack and shift beneath me,
Her once-bared teeth are now
pearls in my necklace
demineralized
waiting to bud and smile at the world once more

– Joslin K. Floyd