I want to speak words like Neruda—
with my heart on my tongue,
my hands digging in the soil of my birth-land
as I decipher the secrets of my forefathers.
And in my chest, I’ll carve out their names
and bleed out their virtue so that it appears as my own.
And I will not tell you that it was the ghosts
that gave me the light because you will not understand
what it is like to have one foot nearing that rusted gate,
while the other still lingers at the playground
where the days were spent playing house
and drawing hearts around the names of our lovers.
