She Reads Her Old Journals ...

I want to reach into the purple ink

of your old journals,

         up through the gooey pen tip

      biting the page, and say:

“You are amazing.

And surely don't know it—

          But I can taste

         Those words you were feeling,

     I am breathing the heat off your tongue.

          Say it again. How dad

         Told you to 'Wear boy's clothes'

     Because you were becoming, and he only saw young.

          Say it again. How the

         Beach is filled with boobs

     And the night with music, soft lips, sweet unknowns.

          Say it again. How being

         Tears-on-knees by your burnt hopes

    Became your warrior-paint, your love of self, your compass home.”

I could bla-bla-blah on a page

   My second-hand awe, aching

At the imprint of a thousand heartbeats, stuffed between these pages.

But I'd rather crumple-and-toss all that,

Just whisper out into your eyes:

“You could have made 

                    bombs from your pain—

                                      but you made this.”