A Letter (To Those Who Need To Know Me)

continents have moved faster than this thought. Board this ship, take no ticket home.

Forgiveness,
It has been said,
is for anybody who needs safe passage
fortunately for this
pack of ciggarettes, forgiveness is not a code my body wears too comfortably


if the ribs,
when pressed to the bedside
hear birdsongs
in the shaking

or in the morning
when my fingers wear
the neck of a poem,
(Dylan Lyric whispered/Samsara/waking up to unknown beds)
moonsong of the head, dressed like Forgiveness,

a girls tremors press my lungs,
(we have chain-smoking/,
we have confessions,
Poem of Throat,
every exhale says the same):

“i smoke a pack a day now, but it feels like 5”
she whispers back in smoke, i watch for the exhale,
(an exhale feels like dawn, drawn out
marked by new starts)

the cotton sheet has turned to continents
moving beneath us,
ash spills onto the bed like shipwrecks
cracks open, resin of a lie
of a wish,
a 2 prayer a day smoker,
I have known no boat home, no safe passage
find me, hiding in the islands of a lighter,
i have heard the hometown humble in her laughter
it reminds me of childhood,
the house was more tidal wave
more riptide,
a push towards absolution

the home was miles wide,
it had cracks in its floor,
I swore by the sand mother carried home,
her love was a great barrier, nobody knew how it got there
or how long it had been,

I thought we would make it someday,
I never knew why we were so lost
i casted prayers onto the backs of waves
the ocean is forever unforgiving.

to those who need to know me,
watch for an exhale, try and see what its saying:

my dad is a Bouyi, out there in the dusk,
coming in and out of the tired ocean,
you can see him from miles, going through that door,
nobody knew when he would come up again for air.

the ocean is quiet beneath.

of course I could talk about maps,
but that would be too easy,
I used backpacks to carry them,
but the ink always bled its directions into
the blue horizon,
you can’t carry maps and swim at the same time
you might never have the questions
at the same time
as you have the answers

everybody has known the weight
of gallons of Atlantic held in their clothes,
I wondered how the water stayed in my sweater for so long,
how even after you get out, you still bear the weight
of a hundred shipwrecks,


to lessen the weight
(one day you will see)

is to burn your prayers

the metaphors have become self aware:
to lessen the weight,
is to get closer to death,
to inhale, to regret,
the metaphors have become dangerous,
the ocean when speaking to itself
says:
“this is not my home forever,
a bed of corals, of barriers, of shipwrecks, of distance,
one day in absolution, I will become a cloud, exhaling everything everyone wanted me to be”

and for me,
well theres only so much to be said
while above water,


when I’m out at sea,
I press my head
to dawn
ask it to give me back
my maps.