THINGS WE DID'NT TALK ABOUT

 I catalogue them

                 brick on brick. I could build a home from them. No windows or chimney. no room to mistake it for anything but a prison.

I could write your name above the entry in lamb'd blood from my own flock. I would not burn it down. I wouldn't let it waste to ruins. it would stand like a crooked steeple, as a warning an altar and gravestone.

I cradle them

            even on nights when they eat away at the edges of my sleep.

I tried to drown them once

             but i was the one left gasping. I sang water for days.

I keep them close

                      while i cry untill my skin burns. untill my tears forget their origin, like the immigrant's daughter loosing her mother tongue, until the pain flows into the far corners of the room, untill,

I pray, it is no longer mine to claim.

(you will continue to spin your stories and sell your struggles. you will find what you're searching for in their wonder and their pity and their applause.)

I will raise the river and flood the fields with salt.

but it will take a lifetime to forget.

my grave will be lined with the things we dont talk about