Losing the Girls I abhorred the idea of losing the girls,
the only things I got before my sister
(She didn’t talk to me for a month.)
But now some days are stones I just cannot carry,
brutal boulders beyond my grasp;
I was reared to be tough, but some days all I do is cry over this enemy too large and within my own breast.
Where could I forge a weapon
to defend myself against soft tissue? It was as if a burglar had snuck inside to steal me from my own life,
had come in the sinister night
and burgled me of my girls, my friends, myself.
But deep in the red flesh of my heart there remains a camp of hope
where horses circle a small, relentless fire and all my loved ones, past and present, sit around these flames,
the love for me in their eyes illuminating this camp like a torch.