kindly stopped

any white girl worth
her weight in self-
esteem secretly thought
she was a reincarnation
of Emily Dickinson
in high school.

doesn't matter if
you understood her
or not—that's not
the point—

something
about the moth
on the windowsill
left dust
on our hearts.

it didn't matter
if it really was
her or a madwoman
in that attic,
carriages & manuscripts
& failure
all ring
true for us.

the need
to be umbilical
corded to some
thing
that won't ask
us questions,

that window-
shaped vision
of the branches
reaching
from the clear
sky
to hold us,

a cabinet
full of our own
suicidal ideas,

the sigh she wrote
when the wind
wasn't enough
to shake the
leaves—

we don't want to
die to be
recognized by
how much
we were loved.

we want to be
absolute
in our love
for our creators.

we are solitary
long before
we read
the signs
that we aren't.

secretly
we know each bird
before it lands,
trace the curve
of words
we will say in love,

how to want
before the need—

how to give
long before
we learn importance—

how the silence
fills castles
& cottages
& caves
& dragon's lungs
& feeds,
how each breath
builds
& speaks.
the tragedy of our
selves mirrored
in each history—

no matter how familiarly
alien she is.