my sister was born as a holy mess, like
an appendix like a grenade, a heart like a
printer jamming when your final paper is
due in five minutes, veins like chewed
straws, salt columns for legs dissolving in
water. like, she’s the blessed saint of falling apart.
like, picture this brown angel woman on
her knees. like, serena dies. like, serena lives.

like, picture this; chaos made of water and
words. serena’s brown body is a pitfall
of a body, her mouth is a sinkhole of a
mouth, and i can see ships capsizing between
her teeth. like, seismic-shiver mouth. like,
she rots quickly to cold soil and flies. like,
her body doesn’t even matter. like, her
body is all that matters.

like, she is made of body and of nothing
but body.

like, she’s not ashamed as she realizes she is
our father’s daughter. like, does it even
matter. his sisters died when they were
twenty-three and twenty-five, and
serena and i know we are going the same
way. like, even when i feel like dust in
the bottom of a sarcophagus, i remember
that this is a tomb, that there must be a body.

our aunts were not immune, and they
died for it. sea-bound ladies, salt-
cracked stomachs, dried oasis eyes
and i did not want to be born into a
cornucopia of dead women, but i was.
like, we both were. i can feel the girls
cutting crop circles within us,
telling us things we can’t understand yet,

like, don’t go outside without your
shoes on, like, you will meet a girl
who came from where you came from but
you won’t know it until it’s too late,
like, your grandmother keeps our rooms
like they were when we died, like,
we need to teach you to love the things
you have to let go of. like, body is only body.