When you run out of words

 What happens when you run out of words
And the lāhui is waiting 

Waiting 

Waiting 

For what you have to say 

Wanting the next metaphor to pull them back here from the corners of our pae ‘āina

How many times will you choke on your own saliva 

Trying to conjure 

The right combination of syllables 

To articulate 

A moment 

Beyond your own comprehension 

To call your people in close 

Home

Say this:

Every morning 

The mauna reminds me of my human

Reminds me of all the ways my every small breath is a revolution 

Reminds me how to stand like a pillar holding 

Holding 

Holding something sacred 

Reminds me of what I must be willing to cast from my shoulders 

For the ones I love and haven’t met yet 

And then maybe the words will come back 

Maybe they’ll write themselves into your love’s spine like ridge lines  

Maybe you’ll find a poem behind her breath 

You can pass off in your own voice

Maybe no one will notice today all the ways you dress your mediocrity in song

Maybe if they do, you’ll still be forgiven  

And if that is so

In the break of silence between stanzas 

Conjure yourself the ea you need to sing the sacred songs of healing 

Forgive yourself for the ways 

Your overflow 

Means 

Something is always spilling out from you 

Even when you are not ready 

Forgive the purge 

The flood 

The way loving 

The way you seem to do 

Sometimes feels like a loss 

Let yourself lean in

And then Let her hold you 

And Watch the way she feeds you language 

One seed at a time 

Watch how her eyes 

Say the prayers 

That bring back all your water 

And words

From wherever they’ve abandoned you 

So that the next time the lāhui asks for a poem 

You can say: 

There is a woman who’s love dances in the valleys between two great mountains 

and once 

I watched her pull the sun from the horizon with just her voice 

Then

I caught the summit of our mauna in deepest part of her breath 

So that When she held me close 

I breathed every bit of that mauna in 

Until 

She were both pillars holding up the sky 

In our sacredness