cursive 

i don't regret any of my tattoos,
they have become more & more true
as i get older. i have a pug being abducted 
by aliens with the words, "take me home."
i was nineteen when i got it at some shop
off main street in phoenixville. the artist
was a weirdo who face-timed his dad while
he worked. wiped away my blood. what did i know then
about escape? they taught us in school how to write
cursive. i practiced my letters on lined paper.
the windows in the classroom filled 
with televisions & birds. outside my hands
went cursive too & so did the trees. a rush past.
sometimes i think i was a child for a shorter time
than most people. or else maybe i am just 
finally getting old. nostalgia starts to change.
it becomes a gone language instead of rain. 
cursive letters were invented for the quill pen.
early quill pens were fragile & prone to breaking.
you had to work fast or else the letter would take you. 
i had a phase in middle school where i wanted to write
everything with a quill. i spilled ink all over
a drawing & all over my bedroom floor.
it never fully came up, we just moved 
a bookshelf over the stain. sometimes i picture
the letters as families holding hands 
in a wild storm. i am not good at keeping in touch.
i am not good at holding hands. my partner tells me,
"relad" & i don't. i feel like when a sentence
swallows the next. i feel like we are 
losing something when the page becomes
an eyelid. i have something in my eyes. 
all the irises worn down & used as hats.
we sleep inside a "q" which is to say the wind
blows clean through our bones. makes letters
in a private alphabet. a bird walks around somewhere
naked. all her feathers used 
for our mundane prophecies.