Leaving your country starts with getting rid of as many things as possible. You give your old CDs to your sibling’s friend. Donate your art books to a teacher. Throw out as many childhood mementoes as your mother allows. Sell your car. Swap your thick hoodies for your sibling’s t-shirts. Donate the rest of your clothes to a homeless shelter.
You pack books from your old lovers and birthday presents from your current lover. You pack art supplies because they’re expensive to replace. You pack your country’s flag. You buy power adapters.
You cross the world with everything you own in two suitcases and a messenger bag.
magnetism - forehead to knees
halfway between fetal and natal is the fatal position
my back curves in inverse fibonacci spirals
crack opens each vertebrae
tears my spinal cord, bares my neuroses
read the insinuation in the sinuation of my bones
I am no armadillo
my arms neither armour nor armament
only poles for whiteflag semaphor
I turn my back to you not in rejection but in hope
you will shield my weakest front.
To the wilting lilies on my kitchen counter:
I am reluctant to throw you out.
You bloomed within a day. Well, some of you. I snipped off your blood orange anthers with the kitchen shears, coating my fingertips with pollen before it could dust the slate and stain my clothes. Hand jobs are always easier to clean up.
I forgot to water you once. I'm sorry.
In the mornings I plucked chlorophyll-starved leaves from the countertop and tossed them in the rubbish bin. Your support system fell one by one, even as you still grew and opened up to the world.
Your petals began to turn limp and brown. I cut away the flowers that were no longer beautifu