I write a poem

i write a poem like a little girl writing a letter to santa claus 

i sit down in my dark messy room with the LED lights on 

and extricate my first thought and form a clause 

i think about women and the places i belong 

and everything i don’t have; loss.

i write a poem like ive never used words before

like i have everything and nothing to lose; frantic

like a girl, lost, with nowhere to go 

she wanders aimlessly but carries herself wherever she goes 

i feel my skin 

where the black ink has seeped into me

where i’ve begged on my knees 

for a pain that burns 

as if my heart is a balloon 

i’ve blown up so nice and big 

that it cannot help but be popped

i trace the ink with my thumb and wish 

my hands were not my own 

so instead i write a poem 

like a girl with no belly 

taken from the starry night 

in the slick black trees

for i am nothing without 

my porous sonorous inflated heart