As I walked out one evening,
   Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
   Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
   I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
   ‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
   Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
   And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
   Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
   Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
   For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
   And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
   Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
   You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
   Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
   And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
   Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
   To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
   Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
   And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
   The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
   A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
   And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
   With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

get there before sundown. 

feed yourself 
only with what nurtures. 

let the process of shedding 
be joyous in its eternity. 

create and call it creation. 

tell lashing out that 
it isn’t worthy of your song. 

beat the drum
instead of yourself. 

beat the drum when hands 
want to become fists. 

beat the drum to get 
beneath the surface. 

jump off the bed. 
welcome waves in the tub. 
cook as if dancing. 

be a metaphor
when literal is too much. 

cry into your journal
as if it is rising’s way. 

praise into your journal 
like you ain’t apologizing 
to no one for shine. 

claim into your journal, 
for there’s no need 
to die waiting. 

be too vibrant for lingering
on those who neglect. 

too awww 
to keep treating yourself 
so poorly. 

be more than knowing. 

in case you need encouragement, 
I’mma share 
that memory 
you tucked away, 

scared you’d be laughed at 
trying for more than 
drowning spectacularly. 

that shows you beyond 
the bad beats. 

who you were before 
that season you’ve forgotten. 

to remind 
that every victory counts
and that you’re 
one step closer today. 

because I faithfully reply to every email from the absurd
gods of urgency who punish my good deeds by leaving me
empty when I empty my inbox … because I praise hating

myself, broken into my calendar’s time-slotted tasks, slicing
me thin with the thick duty of being everything yet nothing
to anyone, not even to me … because I remember birthdays

but forget my own and my mother’s … because she is bitter
sweet as the Cuban coffee she brews after Sunday dinners …
because she loves me only in the language of her cooking

my favorite dish: shrimp enchilados … because of my bland
father sunk in his armchair without me on his lap … because
he never told me the life story I read only in the half

moons of his eyes the morning he gazed into mine, then
died … because my brother and I need to drink to share
our shared hurt at happy hour, so unhappily grateful for

love’s wreckage … because my husband, who’s still scared
of his adoration for me as we embrace sleep, still doubts
how long I’ll nest my dreams in his arms … because I have

never quite told him: always … because I’m just as afraid of
needing him more than myself … because I’m not the one
I’ve curated on Instagram: oh so humbled by, so grateful for,

so many posted blessings with my posed selves … because
tonight I again remember I’m nothing more than a mirage
slowly disappearing on my porch, sitting with half the life

I have left, still trying to piece how I fit into the puzzle of
the constellations … because I’ve drunk their shots of light
and too many martinis … because I’m cheering mindlessly

to the moon, to my wish for immortality amid the clouds
of my own cigarette smoke … because I should finally quit
doubting my life will be more than these anonymous bones

… because I need to believe in something else, truer than
me … that’s why today I had to take myself away
to the beach … because I needed to imagine my father as

that father at the shore, handing a bouquet of seashells to
his son … because I needed to taste that love can be simple
as a mother remembering to pack sodas and sandwiches …

because I needed the seagulls tending the horizon to teach
me again to be as still as them, to peer calmly into the void
of the skies I face … because I needed to hear the waves

break and break me into the lines of this poem … because  
I needed to burn, to see myself shine just as beautifully  
as the rosy glow of the sunlight bathing my closed eyes.