The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.

None of us are pretty, but our ugly has an alibi.

You panic button collector. You clock of beautiful ticks. You run out the door if you need to. You flock to the front row of your own class. You feather everything until you know you can always, always shake like a leaf on my family tree and know you belong here. You belong here and everything you feel is okay. Everything you feel is okay.

We all have bullets beneath our skin we pray our lovers won't flinch at when they find.

But whatever However Whenever this ends I want you to know That right now I love you forever

..when a war ends, what does that look like exactly? do the cells in the body stop detonating themselves? does the orphanage stop screaming for its mother? when the sand in the desert has been melted down to glass and our reflection is not something we can stand to look at does the white flag make for a perfect blindfold? yesterday i was told a story about this little girl in Iraq, six-years-old, who cannot fall asleep because when she does she dreams of nothing but the day she watched her dog eat her neighbor's corpse. if you told her war is over do you think she can sleep?

Touch me ‘til my ribs become piano keys, ‘til there is sheet music scrolled across the inside of my lungs.