Sunday, September 4, 2011

Day 776: To the woman I would have to be for her

To the woman I would have to be for her

Remember when your hands were dirty
Carried the stray pieces of hearts
You weren’t mature enough to care for
How everything you touched dehydrated
Turned to stone
How you’re uneasiness crushed each statue girl you ever loved
How you were the bearer of dust
Of ruble
Of broken hearts
And empty sleeves
Do not forget the scars
How their brokenness entered your palms in shards
Stayed there
Left its mark
How every time you touch a glass girl now
You crack her with the diamonds crusted in your love lines

Because This will be the way you learn to love her stable
Steady
Her
Only
Think of her as anything but a bypass
A highway
A sunrise
Or sunset
Anything that makes you feel fast and short and beautiful
Call her something frequent
Something forever
But less heavy
Do not call her an ocean
You gave that name to someone else you love differently
Do not call her your shore
Do not call her your soul mate
That’s taken too
Call her beautiful
Even though it been said
It’s a name she understands
Something she can grasp
And it will not scare her to hear
But make sure you mean it every time
That you look at her like it’s a promise


When she learns to trust you with the shards of her mother tongue in private
Tell her you love her
Even if you’ve known for months
Until she is willing to say it in a language your blood can understand
Stay silent
Then, stop translating everything you say and give her the original transcripts
Ho’ike ia ia I na pu’u a na lua
Give her a name for every morning you wake up thinking of her smile
hoohokulani
For the way she seems to put stars in every single one of your skies
Haumea
For the ways she makes you wish you were more of a woman
Pele
For the way she can burn and inch of you with her gaze and her silence
Papa
for How see seems to have given life to everything around you
laieikawai
for How you’d travel all the islands to find her
Because you have heard of her beauty and you trust it
Take every moolelo you have ever read or heard and find a place for it on the breath between your bodies
Learn its purpose through her kiss
Because you know now that this kind of memory is embodied
And when you are sure
When you are steady
Finally
Call her hiiaka
Hold her in your chest
Make sure she is the one you will keep
Who will stay

When you run out of names
Of women
Of trees
Of roots
call her something heavier
Call her
Moana
For the bluest parts of you
The dark spots
The cracks you hope shell someday see
And Learn to love
Learn to not let fall you through you
Slide off her skin

When you re-introduce her to your father
Use the pronoun ku’u
Because it fits
Because ko’u is too serious
And ka’u doesn’t quite do it
Tell him that she is every moon you have carved on your skin
And you are every tide that follows
Tell him
That She is the morning you’ve been waiting to name
That most nights you are kept away just my the thought of your lips on her temple
and that somehow
you found every single one of your gods
in the melody of her breath
tell him that she is real
and that you are ready
that she is hiiaka
and you are hopoe
writing poems for every part of her body
about how you would burn under the weight of her mistakes
while planting songs in the form of yellow lehua trees
hoping
that the salt water between us
might grow something worthy
of her love

2 comments:

  1. Damn.
    That was beautiful.
    I will admit that I can't pronounce nor do I know the meaning of a lot of the words you used but what I did understand was beautiful.

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  2. wow...wow...wow.this is powerful and heartbreaking and hopeful..and so much. beautiful..wow..i needed this

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