the radical protest of slowing down.

you tell me it's hard to love
someone so much like a zephyr--
i've been learning how to walk
slower for you--
i'm a humming bird heart
& a restless squirrel's tail--
i knock my head on 
street lamps like
the moths-- you wouldn't
mistake me for a swallow
tail or a monarch--
there's nothing butterfly about me--
i leave moth dust from
my wings--
you taught me to be a fast girl
but i want to fall more slowly--
like the watchful of 
maple syrup--
teach me to thicken my blood
until it becomes shortbread
dough-- roll me in cranberries
& white chocolate--
i want you to melt with me in
the oven-- pull me apart all
hot & knees unbuckling slowly
slowly slowly--
until you leave my in
my monkey bread elbows--
we've all unfurled like a cinnamon
roll-- that's what you 
do with my tongue.
you called me chick-a-dee or
blue jay-- i never liked
blue birds because they're too
quiet-- too much solidarity--
i was born with the hair 
& the black beak of a blue jay
i want to be fast & loud
but you tell me to lay on my
back-- the sky floats
above me like a bowl of 
Italian wedding soup-- i pluck 
comets out of it 
just to watch them turn to meat ball
in my hand-- the pasta pearls
lilt in & out of becoming stars--
you tell me to take the wrapping
paper off the sky
so i pull & pull & tear out
cloud & oak branch & airplane streaks 
until there's nothing 
but night beneath--
yet you tell me to keep shredding,
so i pry the moon hastily from
her corner-- she was only a 
watermelon rind cut in the sink
by my father-- seeds taking root
across a patchy sky--
i roll over to ask
how long it took you to
wrap up the sky like that & you
tell me we should stop listening
to the sun-- count time
in each other's mouths--
you tell me it's hard to
love someone so perpetually
tragic as the moth against 
the lamp light-- i bang i crush
i break myself to pieces--