usnea

queer witchy hands making/writing on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory ("montreal") she/her

[elleclairehere]

[elleclairehere]

the yarn of a homemade doll’s hair in my child’s hands, i’m sitting in my grandmother’s screened-in porch, learning to braid. crouched next to me revealing the secret of braiding, she guides me -- 

three strands, not just two. 

[elleclairehere]

wiping my hand across the ache of your forehead. cool fingers finding the fire behind eyes. i worry and i worry again. in/unquiet. the distance between is tangible. and wears a price tag. if i were near, how would i care for you? bake muffins, your favourite. play music softly in the other room and hum along. run with you outside. rub the long sigh of your back. braid your long hair. light your cigarette. boil ginger tea for your throat. ride the city bus. hold your laughter in my own two hands. {march 2017}

[elleclairehere]

anyway.

anyway,

remember the time we didn’t stay in bed all day? the air outside wasn’t cool, breathing through the lace of the curtains.

the blankets weren’t so warm and enveloping, just right. we didn’t pull into each others bodies, burrowing into the cocoon of here we are this is it // hold me and i will hold you.

we didn’t let the chill of morning pass by without heed, listening only to the wind inside. the wind of our breath exchanging homes, my chest to yours.

we didn’t lie here forgetting how much it hurt, we didn’t pull perfectly into the shape of each other's curve. we didn’t slip seamlessly along the smoothness of sleep-skin.

we didn’t hold like, i will protect you and you will protect me.

darling,

we didn’t.

and i am outside, cold morning. walking away, my feet two separate beings, carrying me through the dark of blue dawn alone.

and i, i don’t even know where you are.

[elleclairehere]

dip your hands into the tide, the pads of your fingers through the silt. sift loneliness from solitude and understand the difference. the coming together and the divergence. let loneliness not define your solitude.

[elleclairehere]

Listen, the riverbed of solitude reverberates with sorrow. It always has and always will. Open your tender mouth to its current. Swallow deep.

[elleclairehere]

so. 

[elleclairehere]

[elleclairehere]

[elleclairehere]

shhh remember my hands are laced with rosemary rubbed together to stimulate remembrance to stimulate your presence

trying to swallow the ache

how many times i’ve choked on the vowels of your name rounding my mouth around sounds familiar like goodbye it’s ok i’ll wait 

[elleclairehere]

[elleclairehere]

“be like melting snow

wash yourself of yourself”

[elleclairehere]

the ocean is larger than anything i could remember its fingers skip truth into the waves

***

she skipped the stones of my heart over the white-capped eyelashes of the bay

a storm is coming and we gather wood for a fire broken forest collected into our arms there is only so much you can say about passing time

[elleclairehere]

when all else fails 

[elleclairehere]

today the ocean burnt feet cold 

fingers crushed bay berries and traced 

moss

tongue slipped between silent and 

song sung only to myself

[elleclairehere]

tilling fingers through the gravel of solitude 

braiding a rope from my alone and giving one end to you 

[elleclairehere]

What I Saw Through The Telescope

'We are given a face, / which means we are given / a vessel of blood to call body, / & lungs–that know the alchemy / of altering wind into breath–the way / plants are always transforming / someone’s last words / into oxygen.'

forever amazing