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please describe yourself,
in as many words as you like,
our words are boxes,
so check all of them
or just one of them,
“man,” “woman,” “other,”
“normal,” “not,”
the specifics don’t matter,
what title shall we call you by?
Give us a name, a bin, a recipe to bake you,
are you a cake kid
or a cookie kid
healthy kid
or no kid?
—
in check box words, we are
an equation over time
but rather emotional
meaningless letters
words don’t matter in hearts
any Venn diagram misses something
of the magic
exhilarate,
annihilate,
paper plate,
celebrate
obliterate to liberate
the spaces in between
—
can you hear the stars growing brighter
as the shadow walls cave in,
can you see the roar of the raindrops
as the echo chambers win
have you tried to eat melting sky floors
when the meteors lose skin,
have you felt the ache of the flowers
where the perfume swells your shin
have you smelled the sea flowing sulfur
and mountain caves stone brim
can the silver smoke of the ice streams
taste sharks with swallow fins
or will the whisper of the old bones
catch sewing needle pins
can burning bagels out of glory
teach drowning shrimp to swim
in all this nonsense of a heartscape
crawl home all shredded thin
—
our words are boxes
my heart’s growing brighter
our words are boxes
the raindrop roars echo
our words check boxes
the melting floors seek sky
our words are boxes
the flowers ache my legs
check one or many
the sulfur sea’s flowing
we don’t care
the ice streams shriek and scream
as long as you fit
truth told bones still whisper
a box
burn bagel, for glory
inside
nonsense of a heartscape
our world.
Jordyn Saelor 