fucking America, sometimes I love you

     

I wonder how many girls have sex because there’s no one to dance with

I ate and drank and cried,
immersed myself in the moment

we consumed freedom as if there were a
never-ending supply

I horde it now,
liberation
                and place my
hopes on anything new

we learn patience like numbness,
the bitter unfixables

today-
under a microscope

the leaves clog the undersides of the cars,
there is no road.

a garbage can scales the curb, the slope of lawn,
disappears from the halo of light
the leaves crawl around the edges of dark, whispering

I don’t want to hear the news, the litany of
good enough
      and not

there is no joy in the facts of the world
only here, between the lines,
do we find kindness

what would it mean
to change

to hold your outstretched hand
in the face of the world

the way I hold my sleeping daughter
as gently as breath

I cannot fathom the depths of your unspoken rage

how we are waiting for something outside
ourselves

the known circle
the practiced world

there are other lives inside me
waiting for other tomorrows

I am living what I have
the only life I can live in the face
of myself

how can I speak so you will understand?

I want to use words you will recognize
a secret language
                          interpretable only
in the face of love