The truth that lives in your body…

Name the question your
lips mouth at 2:37 a,m.,
parched, in need of water.
In need of someone else to hear them.
The elegy must be written.
Revisions of yourself.
Vessels and baptisms in fever dreams.

You’ll fall in love with me because…
You can’t forget me because…

A list for our lives:

1. We don’t settle into places where
   the bottoms of our feet feel
   the electricity to move faster and faster.
   We don’t stay when energy says go.
   When our body says
   run, run.
2. When our limbs say stay,
   stand ground. Tell her
   “don’t go”.
   Tell him your body says
   “I won’t move”.
3. Write ourselves a letter.
   Little notes on the mirror that remind
   us to see the beauty in
   what is always changing.
   Tell her everything good radiates
   from her full hips,
   the light straight hair, the lips
   that sing lullaby’s and read poems
   out loud in a dark room,
   alone, at night.
4. Ask who she doesn’t want to be,
   and then pick up those feet and walk so
   far away from that place
   that the memory of it is
   nothing more than Déjà vu.
   Cast a spell.

A thing that lasts forever:

1. A deep internal understanding of self.
   Who are you?
   Stop.
   Ask the question.
2. What day-to-day parts of your
   life could you never live without?
3. The coffee ritual in the morning.
   (raises hand)
4. Bare feet on the dark hardwood when
   the heater kicks on in the fall.
5. Scratching of beautiful words in
   the notebook that is always with you.
6. Smells that bring you back to her.
   Or him. That place.
7. Food you make on a Tuesday afternoon
   that reminds you why eating is an
   act of pleasure.
8. The way the palms of your hands sweat
   when you think you might be
   falling in love.
9. Mistakes you get to reintroduce
   as new paths that lead you to better things.
   Better people.
10. The realization in each day
    that you’re going to die
    and this makes you
    breathe deeper and run faster
    and love harder
    because you know you might not
    be able to do it again tomorrow.
    While also all of your
    synopses are screaming
    that death will never find you.
11. Ask — why they are saying you might
    just live forever?
12. A word. A person. A poem.
13. The moon
    holds you.
14. The stars know my name.
    They whisper “chelsea” every time
    the sky darkens and they get a
    chance to speak.
    And, on nights I don’t hear them
    i just remind myself —

I am the stars.
I can say my own name.