tell me something good
at the end of the world i say
tell me something good
and god responds
there is nothing good left.
at the end of the world
there is nothing but a cold stillness
a quiet
in the way there are no songbirds,
not even after dawn
and the night sky burns blue with the absence of stars.
i ask for salvation and god gives me a prayer.
the purple daylight falls like molten glass on my skin and swallows me whole this is the type of drowning which forgives too quickly
everything starts and ends with an aching in my bones.
everything ends with a burning.
a home coming
i walk home
drag my feet against the pavement where i once laid down to look up at the cold,
blue frozen stars
imagine them burn
shatter
explode.
you cannot close the lid on a coffin so easily. in the end, don't we all want to come home?
in the kitchen window i see dust gathering and behind it, light.
in this dream
my parents,
crinkly clean and made of paper
lay out dinner on the kitchen table
i draw two holes for their mouths
red circles
opening in laughter
in my dream
the sickly taste of honey in my mouth
something like oranges
something red and smouldering like a bruise i light a match
[my paper people]
in my dream, i light a match
[my paper parents]
i am the gasoline.
into ash
home is a bad place where bad things grow
the rot calcifies under my fingernails
finds its way under my veins and into my
skin
my father shouts
and all the world goes still
he is angry.
he is angry, and he is fire.
and my lungs have never known air
the way my chest rises and falls is not to breathe
but a struggle to expel ash from the burning
deep inside my throat.
By Mireya Ho
In collaboration with YWMTU (@yourwordsmattertous)