Step One:
Fall in love.
Forget the darkness plucking
your veins like violin strings and
listen to the notes.
Feel your fingers slip into the
boiling ocean and forget.

Step Two:
Remember why you were
alone. Remember when
your lungs were more than
eggshells waiting to be full again,
when you weren't all water and
blood. When you were whole.

Step Three:
Forget. Forget hating
yourself and the bullet buried
in your skull. Forget her
jagged fingers tearing through
muscle and bone. Forget
everything but her fingers.

Step Four:
Hope. Let your hope burn
all memory from your broken
body. Build. Build your
funeral pyre out of curling lips
and closed lids. Wait for the rain
with hope.

Step Five:
Remember. Remember your
winter and the hunger of the frost.
Let it devour you, feel her ice
rip out the living tissue and your
budding yolk, remember her fire,
and burn.