by Jordan Wilson-Dalzell

i came back for you, 

like i always promised. 

we will scream together, 

spit the poison of trauma 

until the whole world is a witness,

will stop turning away from what happened to us. 

 

i returned:

 

to teach you to breathe water without crying. 

to read you the poems that will bring you back to the living. 

to release the cassandra in you, 

the child prophetess who doesn't believe herself. 

 

this is a funeral hymn to the child i once was. 

 

i do not want to bury all of you,

only the parts of you that are ready to lay down to rest. 

let me braid jasmine into your hair, 

root you below the redwood trees that raised us. 

when the undertow pulls you away from the cliffs, 

do not be afraid—

i will not allow your lungs to choke on salt. 

the sea wants to cradle its own;

 

you have always been a daughter of seaweed and brine.