peace in the neon

eire

 

she picked me up
by the breadth of a hair
and threw me into a wall.

 

i am dizzy,
intoxicated by
the voice of her people,
her song of the sea,
her whisper on the wind.

 

“you fit here,” i was told.
“you’re one of us.”

 

yet i’m a bony heap
tossed carelessly,
limp neck and
limbs akimbo,
tangled in a corner
5,000 miles from the
force of her throw.

 

i chronicle as loose-leaf
all vision and sound.
i remember the melody
lifted from the waves.
it does not belong to me
though i must
to it.

 

she carved it from fierce gales
into the cliffs of my
shoulder blades.
she breathed it into
my spine.

 

33 vertebrae,
singing.
twisted and contorted,
upside down and out of key
in the crook of
memory.