when i leave you here,
the selkies will shed their skin and form my absence
you’ll barely notice, your heart so strung up in the sun grass and beating with the rain birds
i wake up in the night and call to Freyja
pray to Freyja
waiting for the sadness to be plucked from my throat like a harp string

when i leave you here, the sirens will sing themselves hoarse and then sleep
wrapped around your star-studded bones
i will call out, again and again and again
to the luna moths,
to the golden sun moths,
call out like i don’t know how to leave california
my fingers coax the roots out from around us
and back into dreams again.

i lose myself instantly as soon as the winds start up
and when i leave you here
you will miss me like a rainstorm and i will miss you like a hurricane.