You're Not Failing, Child. You're Singing.

I want to live fiercely. Like I’m climbing for my minutes. My days.

*****

You are not failing poetry, child. You're singing. You're whistling footsteps. You're guiding a thousand gods when you cry, when you think you've failed.

They see your passion. They can smell it from the mountain.
Then they come down.
Now you’re wondering when you’ll die. Just as they rejoice in having seen you born. Let all the grass tickle your eyes.
Do not despair. Or, rather, despair. Despair into darkness, climb down the hole, but keep a candle lit, close to the chest.
Because despair sleeps at night with passion. It strokes her hair, it loves her gently.
She will return.
Let the darkness understand, but do not understand darkness.
You have not failed.
About you are lightning bugs. These gods. Your whistling sent them messages.
They’ve come from the mountain to glow about your head. Warm bodies.
There is hope.

You’re guiding a thousand gods when you cry, head in hands. Look up! Angels.

They have walked toward you, gods of the old country.
From your childhood.
From the tea-lights.
From the garden.
You cannot see them, but around you, messages. Look up.

*****

I was running five miles, I was singing.
But in breathes. I was running and breathing, sweating doubts out.
Calling your name. I was singing. Your name in breaths.

This is how I fail you. I breathe in.

Before I know your name, I sing it.

The dark spots build hives in my eyes. I am running.

Speak of how I will come back to you. I have come back and do not know it.

At night I compose long theories in the air about how my heart is electricity.
But it fades with morning. My lips seal the dream. Kisses the theory, smudges the lines so I wake with smudges. Nothing makes sense. Have I failed?

*****

You’re not failing, child. You’re singing.
You’re making your way through what will be the map of love.
Breathe in. Your palms.
Despair already licks the skin. But clean.
It is whistling the theory. In your ear. A thousand gods build hives.

It is hard to believe the streets have stone-bodies.
It is hard to love the body of rock.
The gods against you, this is why you bleed.

You’re full of theories. Nestled, there, in cell-homes.

One day, you across the sky.
The gods rejoice, seeing you, child, sparkling.

You are not failing, you’re moving. Singing. Inside you, the world.