Birds perch on the gaps in barbed wire

Beckoning us to join them

Water trickles through the obstruction in its path as if it were nonexistent

We have forgotten that we are water

Vines weave a tapestry through metal

If trees cannot find a gap in the fence they will squeeze their way through,

engulf it,

absorb the border within themselves

This is a call to arms

LOVE

I want my love to break through glass

I want it to uproot the weeds that have grown in my heart as it picks through yours

I want it to burn through every piece of fabric stained with blood

Love was never a pacifist

Where there is evil there will also be two kinds of joy

One that revels in the misery,

grinning faces posing with dead bodies

while others look on in silence growing numb

But love is the joy of resilience

The joy of knowing we will always need eachother enough

to tear down the walls and reach out our hands

in spite of everything, even death

To grab at the roots of ourselves

and plant flowers in place of the hate that’s been sown,

though the stems may have thorns

This love will be the callouses born from fighting our way

through rough brick and sharp glass edges,

but they’ll just make it that much softer when palm meets palm

This love will be the fertilizer for a garden of scar tissue,

never again to be buried under earth and thick skin

This love will be the seeds taking root

after a long cold winter,

sprouting from our chests and cracks in the pavement

to greet a long-awaited spring

A NURTURING DEATH

Shot-gun wedding

Drive-by baby shower

Close-range baptism

Burn down the forest,

the church and the steeple

The baby’s gender is Destruction,

Death, and

Primordial Chaos

We are unlocking the worlds they shut away,

beyond the talons of textbook definitions,

worlds they swore could never exist

worlds they swore to destroy

We’re pulling out fragments

through the cracked open door

to fill the potholes and cracked cement

of our bodymindsouls,

to make salve for the wounds

The ones they claimed were pre-existing

and unfillable

and unfixable

and “who’s going to pay for that?”

We are toppling immovable fortresses

limb by limb,

peeling off skin and tearing through tendon

to reveal the brittle forgeries of bone

We are de-manufacturing wilderness

Not just free reign for the trees

or even all the life they hold,

but regrowth for the village of Ahwahnee,

birds pecking out the eyes of campers at Yosemite

What remains will be fed back into the ecosystem,

into the bellies of bears and mountain lions,

swallowed by insects and earth

until it’s decayed enough to fertilize the soil

and grow food

medicine

life

A rebirth

A nurturing death