Desert a Friend

All the want in these veins

could water the earth

and build forests from the dust

grow meadows from the red mud rust

—

I have wandered through the dry

but my tears keep me alive

carve a track to take me to the seaside,

maybe six years from now I’ll arrive

on a quiet night

to dip my toes in the surf

and teleport every inch of ocean I touch into landlocked canyons

of my continental heart,

rush through ravaged ravines of thirsty need–

but now,

I want like a calling card’s

unfulfilled promise (text me, maybe?)

and I want like a falling ark

where the floods vanish,

I want like a bottle left behind on the moon

I want like a dancer with no song

I want like a gymnast reaching for the bar

I want like a demon leaping for heaven’s halo

one day

I will drink the whole sea

all that fish pee

belongs to the Sahara

don’t say sorry

for holding back–

just a tiny wanderer,

a speck

on a beach,

has carried all this sorrow somewhere in their bones,

they can carry oceans too,

in a desert of friends

I want like a bird of paradise,

calling

falling

plumage as blue as the missing moon;

like a bird of paradise

dances,

so do I

like a bird reaches out her wings

so do I,

like a bird circles the sky

so do I,

and one day I will fill up these deserts

with feathers

broken by burrs and stickers

from every story I took them on,

and this want,

the ocean and blood and tears,

will burgeon like a breath released

upon the seeds

and they will grow,

from furthest coast to evershore

and the desert clay will crave no more,

“May wet roots burrow deep to hold me close,

and foliage scowl back at the burning sun

to guard me.”

One day, we will reach the sea.

But here,

now,

my cries only lead me

to mirages

of paradise

as empty as the desert wind.