“Catch your fire, don't kill

Hold your fire, don′t kill

Learn your fire, don't kill

Be the fire, don't kill

Catch the fire

And live”

-sonia sanchez

Fire

Is about dignity 

How do you tend to it?

I burned it

Pages of you

Torn from the binding

Shredded

All Seams

No substance

Frayed

Threadbare

I search these edges

for what’s left

Of your

integrity

screaming

exposed

inflamed

devitalized tissue

rotten sinew

you cannot heal

what you hate

i curl my lip, reach for my liver

filth eater

make what is septic, bitter

equal parts resilience and vigor

Feed and nurture the flame.

one hand to the earth

one hand to the womb.

inhale, exhale

release to make room

Begin again: Re-member your name.

My grief is an honor

You can’t take

Can’t silence

My love

Endures

Insists

Regardless

I burned it.

My love is a field you cannot damage

I burned it.

I reclaim what’s mine, what you took for granted.

I burned it.

I return you your shame, your sickness, your famine.

I burned it.

Fire is about dignity 

and how you tend to it.

Mama, sigo siendo tu hija.

this is not a call for mercy

we all die here;

this is a song;

arterial pulse.

the heart contracts

and i re-member

sun

water

dust.

gods in my fingertips

my womb a testament

to life’s longing for itself

Mama, soy tu hija.

there is no salvation

no utopia

only breath

blood

salt

and this is enough.

low pressure

song;

aching belly.

can’t find my pulse

my center of gravity

both a gaping hole

& a writhing knot

all i smell is blood

nauseous shock

(is this what 'trauma' is? Is this what 'trauma' does?)

alters us by

blunt force

sheer will

brutal juggernaut

between

debilitating grief

and profound rage

I stagger, I reel, I sway

engulfed in fire

rolled by waves

i surrender to the clouds

I weep

I scream

I pray

my breath expands

i become Lightning

Thunder

Storm

this anger is grief is love is pain

this burn is frightening

but fire transforms

so i endure

i surrender

(re-member)

become through

y que el mundo sea mejor.

y que el mundo sea mejor.

y que el mundo sea mejor.

unmoored

i too become the driftwood

worn by water’s memory

my shape defined by the gaze of my witness

don’t forget, please don’t forget:

water re-members everything.

tendrils of a life once bounded

tethers torn, uprooted

stretch out

grasping

bleeding

phantom limbs

in search of earth, something to hold

cruel attachments seeking certainty, control

deface living, deface meaning.

unmoored we give ourselves up

surrender to the salt

unmoored we reckon

with our own capacity to destruct.

we pray:

forgive us, please forgive us

our chests heaving

retching

screaming

we re-member

this is not the end, but the beginning

we gather and disperse, we unveil

the brutality of the individual self

sent by Ocean, rolled by water, flung by waves*

we give ourselves up, we give ourselves away*

we practice and consent not to being a single-being*

*prose here are references to the work of Fred Moten.

i sit here

(underwater)

find breath

watch the sediment drift

clear

sink

i feel the tides shift; the Moon’s tilt

the pull of currents above/within/beneath:

blood of the Earth;

deep sea Fire;

the friction

of pain pressurizing

bleeds vitality.

i lick y(our) wounds

make the pain clean

(weep, grieve, release)

(repeat)

(i said repeat)

from the footholds of The Break

i learn to see

you

(in me)

me

(in you)

(differently)

together

we reckon, we witness

we unravel

cleanse

(breathe)

reweave

here the Water makes holy

beckons the Serpent

devours dis-ease.

here the Salt purifies

(and the Oxygen is not depleting, is not screaming)

here we welcome the dark space

befriend it’s guardians, its sentries.

together

we change, resurface

(‘we go back!’)

to begin again:

worn by Water's memory.

remember yourself land filth eater.

call in the dead, call in the snake

deity of the black fertile

fecund earth

proverbial give-and-take

undulate.

this mouth ringed in excrement

señales 

decomposition

departed

expired

skin

exoskeletal regeneration

these cells no longer serve your movement

(liberalos, cleanse)

this shedding the arrival

of tender tinder

(Smoke rises)

We sway, dance harder

to mother moon

water witch.

in death: we trust,

the soul rises,

we pray,

find rhythm

wind.

a boundary is a membrane

water-laden tissue

this between place

a passageway

a through-place

both me & you

i say self-determination

but what I really mean

is aerobic movement

cellular improvisation

breath

despite exertion.

more than one.

more than me.

more than you

an ensemble

of memory + resonance

freedom & betrayal.

an endless dance of that which is none of us

plays out

between skin and cells.

between

Tracing the edges:

Fingertips

Graze the distance

Between

You in me

Me in you

Between

Surrender and

Resistance

Between: (a noun and a verb)

An Induction

an Alchemy

An Insistence

Of what is neither me nor you.

the violence we have learned pt. 1

disquieted entitlement

feeds to fill

this void

this wound

insatiable pits of unworthiness

unbelonging is violent

in what it destroys

consumes:

you see home is what you make it.

let me crawl into the space between skin and bone

let me live between the folds

invade your fascial tissue

you said i was my own 

parasitic 

this 'reciprocity' feels narcissistic

i guess a boundary is but a membrane

to eat through

let my thirst drain you

of your own water;

your own

relational

distinctness

so i can live

some place other than myself.

make your body my host;

my ‘dream house’

call it anarchy, liberation.

smoke signals

i worry that my words smother

undermine

mask

forsake

what my body is trying to tell me.

i worry

that this is an excuse.

a means of avoiding discomfort;

pain.

this body is overwhelming.

i worry

i worry

that if i reach for you

that if i reach for you

you wont have anything to say

you wont hold my gaze

and i’ll just be standing, searching.

or that you will

an echo of a body; what’s in a name?

and see down

how do I call you?

right through to the bottom

corozonar:

creation is both the love and pain

of everything

i worry that if i reach for you

ill discover

you have already left

and i was never really here at all

that i’ve gone mad

dead

to whom do i belong?

(please claim me)

how is it possible

to yearn

to long

for a being;

an entity;

an embrace

that is neither you

nor not-you.

that is both always here

and not here

at once.

the unrelenting wail of crossing

aches 

of that which cannot be spoken;

cannot be named

"that which does not need us, but makes us"

 the impenetrable womb

of the third space

what would she say?

“why do you mistrust?”

“is a smoking mirror still a gaze?”

can you not see how it rises

the repressed

fear of abandonment

self-hate

smoke signals

in the ether 

carry the truths we are too afraid to face;

that the body betrays

remember what you are. where you came from. what conceived you.

water is your only name.