I’m still learning to ask for what I want I drink in the stars as though I were parched, I still imagine myself, torn and strewn across a frenetic sky He arranges the pieces as I try to memorize the static between his finger and mine, He holds me entirely, and I am not without.

I. My mother asks me about my writing I open my mouth then pause until I recall the price at stake and the prospect of victory flattened by what’s masked as support I deflate myself at any opportunity. II. My mother is excited to teach me, to mold me in her image though my face is neither hers nor my father’s and she repeats, “are you still listening,” as she urges me to defeat my saboteur I cannot erase her voice, now an echo in the cavernous ruin of my mind.