breathe out.

i need a language with more


synonyms for love
 that do not strike my ears

like a slap or a secondhand


sigh,

but mold around me like a cast on fractured
 arms—

it is not that we needed to be put
 back together,

it is that
 we needed to learn
 what healing is,

how to hold someone close,


how to lift our hands again in surrender,

how our valleys show us to savor lavender in our lungs

when we were too weary
 to reach the summit.

i need language with no
 index

for fear because


i  have all the lists of what paralyzes us,

and there is no manual


that can teach us how to take those first steps—

we begin again because we are chasing
 daylight,

and we carry


only antonyms of fear on our tongues,

shouts like the sun on our cheeks,

smiles we have hidden since we discovered


how a priceless courage
 could cost so little
 and so much—


waterfalls sweep us up


and drown us out.

i want a language of


words that do not exist
 except in the way

i feel their absence,

with no title or author,

but if we ever find this place between,

turn the first page where
 i dedicated in the old words

this new poetry to you.