laranja amarelo

for
every single star
that dimmed from her face.
They called her names yet they mourn her now,
as if their sweet talk could erode the years our ears
collected of their hate and apathy.
There is a thirteen year old sister
buried in the thick black loam
of their pity
there is a thirteen year old sister
buried 6 feet under the shoes
of bodies that will grow like
knotted birch trees.
and I, along with the family
that adopted us,
we will be those bodies.
When we stayed the night at the Schofield's,
Maia and I would lean into the night.
We used to write her letters
as Melinda the fairy, who lived
in a hidden oak castle.
3AM letters and gifts
that we hoped would retain that wild innocence
that incredible faith-
that despite
fathers that did not love us and mothers
whose attempts fell short,
life would be okay.
On July 28th, 2007
we drew blood upon our hands and clasped them together
A locket.
A pact of sisterhood that we hid in our chests.
Her hand was fresh and humid and half the size of mine.

I have tried to be angry
but all I seem to remember is the
face she made when she
chewed up stars and
went on to brag about it.

I need to be gentle for the girl
that flung her arms around my neck;
I hoisted her into the air and spun
and her smile flung across the sand
and the waves, and into the sun
because it was radiant and strong
and we all knew it would die one day
(but we didn't know when)

june child,

laugh a rolling hill

out of this ancient crag

spot it daisy

douse it in a filmy sunrise

over the poplar.

chew, as your horses do,

the grass into a knot

that will flower in your belly.

the next time you exhale

will be the day

the land bursts

a blossoming ocean.

flushed june child,

with your wiry hair

sweep the cirrus dust

collecting in your room.

kiss the roses,

kiss us, kiss the walls

and wipe the misery

into the lyrics of a poem

titled: Me, Who I Am, I Am Sad.

wash yourself. we collected all 

those drunken days of drizzle, patter

patter patter our pipebones

not for this day,

bleak rainswollen caskets,

metallic pink.

precious june child,

the long sun welcomes you,

the lambs, the birds, the

shivering black lab

invisible in such a clotted wood

you will spin until the sun ceases

and those that walk in darkness lose

all sense of self

until then

for your wiry, daisy hair 

in tall grasp

we look for you

in seashells 

with bellies 

upturned

like open palms.

The floor was cluttered with art supplies, clothing, cds. Photographs were strewn across the carpet; most of of them either taken by or containing me. I was at her house to pick up a shirt I had forgotten a few days prior. She gestured in front of her closet. As I bent to pick it up, she spoke with a voice never used before. It was glass-like; completely transparent, a loosely tied tightrope, a faucet rushing blood down the drain. 

“You remember Maggie”.

 I did. She was basically my younger sister. She was technically my best friend’s younger sister’s best friend. She had a locket with my old chubby face in it. We had identical ghost scars on our hands from a seven year old blood pact celebrating our sisterhood. My favourite memory of her came to mind, blinding, hoisting her into the salty night air and spinning, spinning, until we fell into the beach, smiling, laughing. Blinding.

 "She took her life".

She didn't know Maggie. I didn't want to hear this from her. Not in this half-painted room that reeked of sweated-out boots and paint. I left the house. I went back to school. I finished the school week. I went to her funeral. Her casket was metallic pink. I finished the term. "I'm sorry," I would say to my teachers, "I'm just having trouble grasping this concept."

The words came first. The words tumbled into me, grain by grain, until I was laughing with the salt smell again. June child. Open palms, flung into the sun, chewed up stars. When I visited her stoneless grave, the sun was rising above the wall of pitch pine and paper birch. Softly, a blush spread above the opposing wall of trees, a parade of muted kings, diamond dispersion twinkling in the trees like stars. I was in a quiet gathering of strangers, buried in soil instead of loss. I'd written poetry before, but I'd never excavated words from bones. That's how Yorick was remembered. That's how Sula reconciled her relationships, how Adonais was birthed, how Siddhartha began his work of freeing all of mankind from suffering. 

The images came first as words. This was how my imagination worked: the images were stuck cluttered to my brain, blemishes of light, colors drifting through people, and  phrases that collected in all the alcoves of the world. The first painting I made after Maggie's death was tucked under my tongue. The second was in that memory, spinning around my skull until she sprouted wings and I fell into the sand by myself.