There are times
like this
when my blood approves
of life and I try
so irrevocably
to find something beautiful
even for a minute.

Last night the sky folded
gritty, burning sandpaper
over my eyes and forced them
to stay open
just to cry.

Sometimes
you have to feel
to discover something
real.

Last night
I peeled my clothes off my
aching body that felt so dead -
a thousand dying birds fluttered
in the empty hollow spaces
between my bones.

It was a night
that I’d cry myself to sleep
when my body finally shut down,
because it had to;
I would wake up to a
bloody sunrise
and chilled air,

The birds in my head
would scream too loud
for me to remember
how to present myself
as alive in the morning.

There are times
like this
when my blood approves
of life and I try
so irrevocably
to find something beautiful
even for a minute.

Outside (unsheltered)
the wind rips
at my emptiness,
and as the birds fall away

I see cardinals,
sitting carefully on wires,
and I smile, thinking
you’d like that.