7.3.23

Descending back into and through the darkness I tried to look for you. Opening the ocean wound, I asked: where are you? There's a beat here where there is only myself. I was born of the world and also something else. I knew my mother and also someone else. Awake in the forest I felt as if I was drinking it in. I don't have the words for forest yet, for tree, for moss, and rock. By this I mean their true names, the names that cannot be said aloud. Walking without direction, I had to admit I was afraid. Can you love something without being able to describe it to yourself? This morning I looked around the house and tried to turn everything into a verb, hoping to do the same to myself. Consider: flower, cup, and green.

A call suddenly; it's the normal dispatch from home. That strange geography of where I grew up. Even then I was afraid of the dark, knowing that it was not the dark I was afraid of. Still no peace at home, my sister informs me. Sometimes people become countries. And everywhere in that country are even smaller people, unsure how to escape. 

Recently: better sleep, less dreams. I can return to my own country, that place with both ocean and mountain. In my country I read to my people from the book of sleep, which is about life and death, and in the morning I can't remember any of their names, like a secret that love asked me to keep.