history has a habit of metastasizing,
blurry and darker than squid ink.
yesterday an old happiness froze fingers,
then ribs, smelling like flashlight batteries.
it was dark and i dreamed
of only carrying one breathing pattern,
even and irreverent,

eyes underwater and stinging:
admiring the air
for its emptiness.
remembering how women drove
to unmarked doors
in pursuit of such purity,
only to face impermanent erasure.

a cheap caricature of loss.
disjointed and lovely in its grief,
so unlike the scars of deep sea creatures
who had never before heard
the word drown.

–Shereen Lee