graphic by lyn enrico
I swear to God I’ve learned
since the summer I was twelve and angry.
The summer when the windmills on the mountains watched over me like
guardian angels I didn’t believe in but my aunt swore were always there.
The grass in the field blanketed my bare feet so I stood on my hands,
cursing the comfort.
That was the summer of secrets and diary keys
and shoving love down my pockets with the lint and spare change.
That was the summer of burial.
I was teaching myself to fight like a boy, like a god.
I was learning to fight and to bandage my own
knuckles when they got bloody.
I was teaching myself to be pretty, like a girl, like an animal.
I was learning to be the wisteria
crawling and punching and eating its way
up the trees and telephone poles and windmills.
I strangled then;
I left nothing in my wake.
But I swear to God I’m learning now.
I am learning to be like the guardian angels I was promised existed.
I am learning that they’re not gone, they’re just different.
I am learning that love isn’t stagnant water.
It’s a river rushing through the mountains
towards the ocean’s wide and welcoming mouth.
It’s the air caught in the teeth of a windmill that
churns and changes its course.
It reincarnates.
And when I’m out of spare change, it’ll still be there, waiting for me,
not gone, just different. I just have to let myself find it.
I’ll accept the windmills’ guarding gaze.
This will be the summer of revival.
I swear to God I’m learning now.