Did tear along.

Did carry the sour heave

of memory. Did fold my body

upon the pillow’s curve,

did teach myself to pray.

Did pray. Did sleep. Did choir

an echo to swell through time.

Did pocket watch, did compass.

Did whisper a girl from the silence

of ghost. Did travel on the folded map

to the roaring inside. Did see myself

smaller, at least, stranger,

where the hinge of losing had not yet

become loss. Did vein, did hollow

in light, did hold my own chapped hand.

Did hair, did makeup, did press

the pigment on my broken lip.

Did stutter. Did slur. Did shush

my open mouth, the empty glove.

Did grace, did dare, did learn the way

forgiveness is the heaviest thing to bare.

Did grieve. Did grief. Did check the weather,

choose the sweater, did patch the jeans

worn out along the seam. Did purchase,

did pressure, did put the safety on the scissors.

Did shuttle myself away, did haunt, did swallow

a tongue of sweat formed on the belly

of a day-old glass. Did ice, did block,

did measure the doing. Did carry.

Did return. Did slumber, did speak.

Did wash blood from the bitten nail,

the thumb that bruised. Did wash

the dirt-stained face, the dirt-stained

sheets. Did take the pills. Did not

take the pills. Cut the knots

from my own matted hair.