I walked away from homeward bound lives
when I was thirteen. A satchel in hand, and mask
that put my face to shame, I stretched out with
eagle arms to embrace twilight suns and dying embers.

My father wrote to me once a year, his tales of flying
arms, fat and warm like dinner rolls and gurgling
milk turned sour had me laughing until the tears that
I saved for the stars leaked out my eyes like dripping faucets.

There was nothing in my world, but hands, and crinkling
eyes. I don’t remember if I had a heart then, because it
was never broken by those I met. So I learned to sing with my
eyes closed, wish for things that had flown from me when
my mother first placed her hands on my head, and wish
for years that never came.

On the eves of notoriously angry nights, we sat by
stone campfires and stared at the sticks and stones that
grinded our feet down to dust, ashes. Love, we thought,
can grace us with her presence tonight. And we waited, like
sitting ducks and stone statues, chanting until our breath gave out,
and we collapsed into dirty rag-cloth heaps on the ground.

And soon, I began to long for home, long for heartbreak and
swelling silence that rang throughout drafty halls. Comforting
touches and quiet whispered sighs began singing in my mind
as we trudged along the road we scraped with our bare hands.
But my Heart made a reappearance in dreams of chubby cheeks and

aching smiles. Is it time to go home? It asked me. And I laughed, the
sound weighing heavy in my mouth, leaden and dead. Is it? Is it? I weighed
my answers on scales of petal wax, and lullabies. Carried their responses
like charms against my chest.

Is it? Is it?

I peeled the mask away from my dying face,
left the satchel by the side of the road. And taking my heart,
placed it delicately back inside, and turned towards the roaring
fire.

Are you ready? I asked. Take me, break me, love me. It responded.

Onwards, we walked.