Tell me your darkness
What you might not blurt out right away but
would come interlaced with “um” and silence
Because here I sit, on the second tallest
branch of this forgotten tree, you below me,
not yet grounded but shaky-leg on the ground,
I am the body of a listener split open
with a hollow space to
fill with what you will tell me

Tell me your rock
What might hold you down more than
the way
you stand now
The part that feels most solid and cold, comforting,
tell me why and really, why
Climb this tree to join me, in the ridge
of this branch,
my hands are open for you to place in them what words you
can offer me

Tell me your breath
What makes it come quickly, sporadically,
and what makes it stop
I am ready, silent, greedy for a piece
of knowing
you can place in my hands,
An offering, seemingly small but I know, knowing you
will fill all of me and spill over
splattered knowing on the trunk of the tree on which I perch

Tell me your hands
What makes them open more than close, and
when you papercut or bruise them, who holds your fingers
What does that drawing mean, on the skin next to your thumb, and
why is the scar shaped like a lake on
your palm
I want to hold your hands in my open ones,
still greedy, tell me more about why
your pinky bends like that,
If it’s a long story,

tell me your time.