Tensions

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I am beginning to name my knots.

Let one in my neck be Wanting

from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent.

Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame

a product of still wanting him to touch me

even though we both know he shouldn't

and being caught between recoiling and not.

Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance

from consistently loving people that are too far away.

In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes

these pains are interconnected

and I know that all these names mean the same thing:

I hold on for far too long and I need to learn to let go.

Requiem

I only love those

slender boys with slight frames when 

they remind me of

you.

Moonshine

Moonlight pours through my
window and reminds me that
while the days are too dark
the nights can still be bright.

Bedtime Stories

I read to you because my mother read to me.
And in those moments I felt as loved and as safe as a strangely paranoid and anxious child could feel
-Certainly more safe than the rote prayers that my grandmother made me parrot back to her made me feel-
And for years
-long after I'd stopped remembering to pray-
I couldn't fall asleep without reading.