Day 924:

my heart on the edge
sleeve sewn for sliding down down
down. everything, falling

Day 923: yeah, sure, whatever

today
i had to keep every part of my happy
under my skin
didnt want you
to see
it coming
didnt want to ruin
expectations

Day 922:

i do not sleep
not these days
just wait for morning
then night
then morning again
until you are here
close enough to feel
in some way
maybe tonight with my skin
tomorrow
my lips
the day after
i might hide a part of myself in your kiss
if i can get close enough
maybe ill stay there forever
being quiet
maybe youʻll forget i am there
maybe you will forget i ever was

Day 921: Haiku for love

love is not the quest
we find ourselves breaking through
no. its forgiveness.

Day 920: Kamakau

"Guns and powder are what make bullets fly.
Intelligence and thought are what make ideas fly,
and those are what encourages the hand to act and to write"

it took all my energy today
just to emultae
someones voice
his is of the same tone
skin
brown
and yet something about him
of me
still makes the woman in me feel caged
even though he has so much to say
so much to liberate

Day 919: haiku

slow and steady wins
but where does the race begin
somehow, im backwards

Day 918:

i want to write some sound into that silence
that vacuum of space that was left in the crater created by the colonial machine
i am no author
just ewanna transcribe a bit of that love story
that no one seems to see
that we are all somehow
hiding behind

Day 917: legacy

1.
the oldest memory i can call upon
is the fast burning of nylon and polyester
if i think long enough
sit still enough
i can still see those stars begging to be freed from the fire of their bars
i was three
barely old enough to call upon the gods in my name
and yet
was marching attentively in the name of so many others

2.
my father has soft knuckles
a slight limp
and callouses on the tips of his fingers
he is not versed in the language of carpentry
but can build you a song with the flood of revolution bursting from his bones
he is made of lanague and melody
born of moolelo and promise
he is the honesty of scripture we are all trying to chase

3.
the first time i heard the word soverignty
i shouted it at the top of my lungs
convinced
that all we needed were a few more voices
a little more valume
just a little more time

4. in the last 10 years i have watched
some of our most treasured leaders either die
or lose themselves in their own minds
most of them
i am sure
are fighting for their memories
the way we remember them fighting for this aina

5. im not sure why
i ever thought we'd stop dying

6. my father tells students that he believes in justice
in literature
and truth
i know my father believes in something else too
because we were born of the same twine
the kind that finds it hard not to have faith in the goodness of others
i think a part of him
will sit with a part of me
forever
waiting for someone else
anyone, really
to understand

7. some days,
im not sure if the academic in me
still believes in sovereignty
some mornings i am awaken by my own cynicism
terrified of what i have become
terrified of what my father would think of me
i wonder if he would regret any part of his loving and raising me

8.
if there is ever a day when
the child in me
finally forgets the stench of melting nylon
the burn of fire on skin
and the salt of shame under my skin
what can be said of my father and the gods i carry in the tongue of my name
what can be said of Papa
Pele
Haumea
Hi'iaka
Hina
every woman whose power is locked in a language frozen by colonization
what can be say of this body
of every single memory therein

9. i try not to think too hard these days
about the things i believe
try to let ocen inside of me
stay settled every once and while
try not to worry my own conscious into combustion
but i know there are questions
i cant dare to answer alone
cant dare to decipher without uncovering
a little more of the shame i have tried so hard to forget

10.
every line of this poem
is something i've tried to hide
somehow
the way they fall out of me now
doesnt seem right

Day 916: rut

why can i no longer
be a story worth telling
or think of one,
at least

Day 915: disappointment

i know now
that i am the breath
caught in the margins of regression
trying so lightly
to be pulled free
what happened to the heavy things like honesty
the parts that use to fall out so quickly
seem so tightly locked and roped up
i feel so tightly
locked
and roped

there is nothing but this shame
falling over and over
nothing but my lines
crawling back inside of me slowly
saying
no
i am not ready
not yet
to be more than i am

Day 914:

when your body is broken
teach the rest of your self to be quiet
do no let you soul stutter off into nothing
hold it all in for the right moment

Day 913: she says

every draft is a practice in patience
i am failing at paying my attention
so i am wiating to be shown
how to slow
a little more
read a little more
and move
a little less

Day 912: Hopoe

Hiiaka saw her dancing in the distance
Hopoe, moving over the land like water over itself
moving like mist
moving like she was meant to
she took her as her favorite
her lover
covered her body in sacred flowers of different colors
planted her a forrrest of rumbling lehua trees
each blossom a promise to return
to move within her dance again

hiiaka saw her moving over the land from a distance
and new she was in love
that there was something to be held in that body
she turned hopoe into a home she could return to
and promise herself
something about this screams love
and yet

they cannot see
they are too blind

Day 911:

when the cold falls over me
in the middle of the night
i find you in the shake of my shiver
in the center of my body
moving me from the inside out
i remember the way
in the early morning
your body would skare into mine
call it the cold
making you dance
i remember in the moments
the best way to hold you
the fastest why to shut the window and pull the covers across your body
pull your back into my chest
but i cannot stop the storm in the best alone
cannot make either of us warm
cannot pull you into me
no matter how much these covers
try to pretend you are still near

Day 910: Jan 17, 2893

today
i boy commented on a youtube video of mine saying
that the words didnt work back then
that they wouldnt work now
that we had to move on
tuck our faces forced forward
duck between the gaps
drive your legs forward into tomorrow
forget about what has happened

what he doenst understand of course
is
that words have worked before
for kings of ours who were smart enough to follow steadfast behind their oratory and belief
and that theres something to be said
about a poem
written in 2008
and how its become more than the words on the page
how its become a moment
a symbol
something simple to be passed between bodies
between mouths
there are teenage voices
learning to scream there one lines to the end
these words are more than the page
they are movement
and they are the most powerful
and tangible thing we have

Day 909: Case of You

these songs ring over and over in my mind
cases of you pouring out of me
even my skin cant hold you in
i tell myself
it is just the love
falling out
over flowing
making room for the rest
making room for your movement
in the shadow of my blue screen tv
in the middle of the night

the bitter of you
its taged to the under of my tongue
a taste that will not go away
i hold you there
like
the brush of a stranger you know you knew once
how it lingers
how you hold me somehow
touching this soul of mine

the parts of you pouring out of me now
are just the leftover promises
we didnt have time to make last night
i am trying to find the way to hold you here
in your constant coming and going
so much moving
so much leaving me
so much falling out
of me tonight

i am learning
somehow
stil;l
to hold myself
upright in the motion
while i wait for your return

908: tomorrow

i can feel you leaving already
slow down that beating
that moving
remember the way waiting felt on the other end
why we must move slow tonight
as slow as these bodies will allow

Day 907: kiss me

heart
beating
chest rise
over
chest fall
cover me here
with your skin
find me something warm to hold tight
like you hips
cracked agaisnt the small of my back
all i see is the memory of you
until i am turned

face to face
breath to breath
breaking these bodies
crushing them into dust
something small
to fill the air like vapor

my palm pressed agaisnt your wirst
weight holding you down
a kiss to keep the quiet
my lips to keep you warm
to your lips
your neck
your chest
your toso
moving under me
my body
falling down
being raised again
my heart falling over
being raised again
again
again

she says again
and i fall to her hips
remind myself to take my time
she will not be here long
so i will remind her what this love means to the calendars and clocks
how we can make it all stop
make it all freeze between our bodies
until we have to come up for air again

i think she remembers
i know she wouldn't dare forget

Day 906: I may not let go

im trying to find you in the melody of unfamiliar songs
i play them
over and over
until the lines are stuck between my fingers like peanut butter
until i can taste a part of you under my tongue
ill take anything that brings you closer to me
that makes this distance less tangible

tonight
i am holding you to the tone of unfamiliar breathing
i can forgotten your rhythm
but im quickly remembering
the way your chest rises
and the way mine will fall under you

you are remembering to
i can taste it on your skin
you are letting the memories wash over you
trying not to think of the leaving you will have to do soon
just staying still
waiting for me to hold you
a way that begs to be remembered
holding me together
in the meantime

Day 905: no movement please (Haiku)

the season is still
a time for loving you close
i pull you in, whole

Day 904: On being in love

these minutes make the days jealous
the way they pass like a sunrise without practice
slow and fracture
something about time has lost its poetry
the last time i kissed you
i was trying to find it
somewhere under the rise in your chest
or the craters in your palm
the texture of your breath
and yet
all i find there is another reason to wait
will no explanation
why time
plays its tricks
why this distance
keeps itself flexed
pressed hard against my chest
like a reminder of its strength
its hold

so instead my matra is a countdown
i sing it every day
1 day 2 hours
tomorrow,
we start again

Day 903: Haiku for B

his words are filling
i scribble them, safe. Still I'm
lost somewhere, fractured.

Day 902: silence

i cannot decipher your intentions
so instead of engaging
i ignore
your attempt at
"conversation"

Day 901: you

i have not found yet
the words
to fully describe
the peace of you
sleeping next to me
tonight

Day 900: procrastination

today feels like a hurdle
like the last step over the hill
like there are only 100 tomorrow left on this countdown
and then what?
how does reaching a number show you anything other than
you ability to remain unmoved
to be stubborn in the face of laziness
i wonder
if these line will only show a lack of inventiveness
as desire not to stray too far outside my own comfort
and yet here they are
900 days
100 more to go
until i'm back at the same place i've been 3 times before
asking myslef if its time to stop
time to reflect
look back instead of beyond
something about me is too afraid to understand the significance of all of this
i'll save the reflection for another day
maybe tomorrow

DAy 899: whisper

someone please
just teach me not to speak
i want to learn to wake to this morning
silent
lately
i have found myself barren
and i am so tired of letting so much of myself be lost
gone to the wind
on this voice
carried away
you are taking too much of me
put my voice down
stop amplifying everything
come here
and be quite with me
come here and settle
come here and let all of me that is dust and cracked be fractured away
come here and be slow moving
show me your lips can do more than i've seen
show me that you are worth at this troubleshow me that you
are not just a broken reflection of what i already am
severed down the middle
show me you can be silent
quiet
can sing in a wishper
can lay me to sleep
can do all of ythis
without taking so much
from me

Day 898: a love poem

i have turned this body into transportation
made a bus of these bones
wings of my skin
everything about me is meant to be moved
over and over
and through that movement
is displaced
is forgotten
is forcged into stillness somehow
its okay not to understand
the poem under all of this
is a love one
like they all are
is okay to be confused
in th silences of movement
in the splitting of this moment
the breaking of two hearts like bread
the sharing of two mind like wine

would you share with me, this sacrament
allow ourselves to be moved by our own holiness

Day 897: Preperation

the secret to not falling
apart
is to forget what loneliness is
to refuse to remind yourself
of the evenings you spend
flinging memories into the ceiling
the mornings you are so overcome with emotion
you find a sandstorm under your eyeslids
begging to be freed
the secret to holding it
all
together
is to forget what love is
throw it all to the wind
so that when it is truly gone
when you are distance
air under your own wings
and silence
that you no longer remember the picture of perfect you found
somehow in the corner of her smile

the secret
under all this mess
is the behind all the ambition
and desire to progress
behind the smile of a lover who lives too far away
is that
no one
and nothing
can pull you far from this rock for long
eventually every magnet returns home in stones
their roots tangled under their toes
nose down
apologizing
for the time
spent away

Day 896: homesick from home

the flaw in the design of returning
is the way in which you still find yourself
leaving
again
way before you are ever
ready

Day 895: tired

sometimes i forget that putting all of myself into this page the day before
doesnt mean i can skyp the process tday or tomorrow
how this process has turned to practice
and torture somedays
but i still find myself returning
somehow
everymorning
or evening
to scrible a few words
in hope
a part of me is
remembered
when i am gone
that maybe this is all menat for something
more

Day 894: lighthouse

i am starting to think of this day
as two lighthouses on opposite ends of the ocean
both constantly vanishing
constantly being swallowed
constantly brought back into life

somehow
in the last 21 years
i have forgotten the pure taste of change
the way it washes over you like white wash
often pulls you into its undertow
how you feel thankful for air immediately after
thankful to be living
even with the different
even if its only whats left
after you have been cut
divided and subtracted
even if you are just fragment
how you found yourself still living in the moment of breathing

last year was a process of learning practice
practice of learning patience
me, a patient
learning to practice my own rotation
so dependent on another orbit that freedom seemed to be that forgotten dream on the open end of a wave
the one that never carried you under and away
who would of thought i'd find myself alive on the other side
even after all the times we were showed there is only one effect of crashing water
eventually
you are always pushed to the surface
weather you are ready to be thankful
im not sure i've learned what that kind of grace means just yet

i am not one to pretend
not one to lie and say
i know what this is and will be
whether it is water, air or gravity
whether i am in orbit or a still frame
looking for someones movement to carry me
i am not one to act as if i can predict such things
but i now
this morning
i woke up
knowing the only kinship i felt to water
was the way i remembered it to tossle me
today i woke up breathing
began my year in the house i was raised in
composed a song to the tenor of her voice
in north carolina breaking off the concrete and winter leaves
she told me she loved me
there were no buts or secrets on either end of the line
it felt right in the way i used to wish we were
until i realized we werent
and learned that she was

it made me want to find the ocean
let myself fall into her
and wait for the day
i no longer feel the need to breathe