me and hymn

little boy cross-legged in the grass
looking up at the sky
farming for words
whose cup are you trying to fill?
you know you could
empty me and fulfil
your self. just want it hard enough.
say the right words, tell me good night.
soft things fall
but they don’t make a noise.
you’ve seen women shatter
before you
but divinity doesn’t
break.

you want a woman divine.

damn.
I gotta be tough
for you
I gotta be strong
for you
I gotta be touched
for you
I gotta be fine
for you
I gotta be soft
for you
I gotta be lost
for you
I gotta bleed

for you

what a woman divine.

she’ll do well in your poems
she’ll roam the thick of your words
she’ll cut through your darkness
she’ll lick the sun and paint your dreams
she’ll be art and artist
your creator and
creation.
how do you get her so
woman divine?

stone-cold smart mouth soft skin so fine
always doing
fine
no need to call me when there’s static
from your side baby i’m okay,
you couldn’t hear me anyways.

wrote her into me from birth:
women divine
struggling.
waiting
where i come from,
to speak

i love you

is an offering. such flowers are given
at the altar of our hopelessness.
when you say
i love you
it is an exercise in words.
you want a woman divine
and write everything but
prayers.

me a woman divine.
my namesake a goddess
mounted on a lion.
She wields danger like a ribbon in her hair
She wrongs and then
She writes herself.
She sings songs over bones.
She builds and she burns.
She blooms and she folds.
She does what she thinks, She wants
what’s a woman divine?
keep writing, maybe she’ll

get real.

Image from the film "Frances Ha", dir. by Noah Baumbauch