Analomink
I am matted with evidence of your violence and generosity
When I got singed by the townfolk's tongues
You anointed my skin with miracles from your branches
And when your sunshine burned my eyes with the ability to see all the ghosts in the smokestacks like you do
Those same firebreathers forged my glasses from pieces of their shattered streetlamps
Nobody ever means to hurt each other
They just get so scared of the empty spaces inside themselves
That they start frantically ripping at anything that moves
For some piece of something to stuff into the leaking roofs of their lonely bones

I know the city stole from you.
I'm here in the deluge pouring in from your injured canopy
I'm here with my feet sinking into the soil
My shoes are wearing open in the mud like seed pods
And taking root to tell you
I'm not moving until you listen to me.
Just because a star landed in your arms when they fell to earth
Doesn't mean they're yours
Even if they have your eyes.
You have so many perspectives
Right now you're looking down at me as a squirrel in a treetop
And up as a toad in a puddle
You see through all the insects panoramic
You think you know me
Because you can look at yourself through my lenses
But to you they're treason and to me they're mementos of compassion

You have memories like that, don't you?
My first tattoo is of one of your freckles
It's on my foot because you taught me to untie my shoes
While the boys back home were arguing between cigarette powderkeg flick
And shut up don't think about it
You taught me bloom
When those smokestack hands learned that fearful compulsive consumption reflex
symptomatic of adolescent societies
And I was afraid they'd see me all naked and drunk with moonshine
You hid me from their searchlights,
And didn't treat me like I owed you,
Just sprouted some blueberries, made me a new body,
and asked me how that singing thing that people do,
How does that work?

We found them dizzy in a crater on the first day of summer,
Nestled among the green asking the ferns and clovers their names
I said hello, asked where they came from, maybe asked where I came from too,
Held out my hand and
That photosynthesis thing you showed me way back,
Well, when we first touched
I got a little tipsy from the wonder of making direct physical contact
With a light source brighter than a planet
Their eyelashes fluttered out a flurry of sparklerpaints
And all my pores sprouted daffodils and rainbows
It was kinda weird,
Like, when they tucked a flower behind my ear and kissed me
I could hear all the moonlight twinkles on the river going supernova
They called themselves North
Maybe, like the star but, it was conjecture at best
They had eyes kinda like yours
Like they had the ability to hear the whole universe
Just by taking a moment to notice the trees respiration
And when I rested my ear on their chest
It was like what they tell you conch shells do
How does that work?
Falling in so deep the trees are all whispering lullabies
And everything is green
And honest
And wonderful,
How does that work?