There is a hole in everything and I find you there, smiling like
you don't have anywhere else to be.
The first poem I wrote that wasn't about you might one day
be regarded as a masterpiece.
People will come from all over the world to run their fingers
over the print
and marvel at how empty it is of you.
They will not recognize your scent clinging silently to their hands.
Because if you walk into a room and notice what is missing from it,
It's still there, isn't it?
The first poem I wrote that wasn't about you
was still about you.
I am writing this poem to remember everything that is bigger
and more brutal than me.
Stars are not small or gentle.
They are writhing and dying and burning.
They are not here to be pretty.
I am trying to learn from them.
In this story, you don't need to be saved.
In this story, your mother raised you to recognize a prison
from a home.
In this story, they don't fall in love with you before they know you.
In this story, they aren't better than you.
A poem for the first full month
that didn’t hear the ache
of your name,
and for every month after.
A poem in which I am singular.
A poem in which I am more than
the people who never wanted me,
and I know this.