Movements
From the moment my lungs
took notice of the smog-filled air
I heard my older sister saying, “Words have power.”
I wanted to believe.
That, when I mixed a piece of
my breath with a few syllables, I
could change something
Not everything,
just something -
even if it was as simple as the way my English teacher spoke to her students
To make her inspire them to be braver
instead of trying to prove that she was smarter
I didn’t believe my sister’s eyes,
begging me to remember that every
sound my mouth made could influence -
but I remember
how my bones have been shaped by every word
my father said -
or didn’t say
I knew that the intonations of one’s breath
held sway on this world’s heartbeat
the day my best friend was transformed from a
beauty to a
broken-down, shattered
heart
the battle wounds in her eyes
begged me to reconstruct her belief in mankind
I tried.
But,
for all my hope-ridden words,
I could not make this fucked up so-called society
seem any less innocent or clean
In that moment,
My words had no power
over the aperture of her eyes
of her heart
So I simply held her close
and let the movements of my soul
guide her on.