Small Cures Read online

  what was then.

  and what is now.

  day five

  healing will not always tell you

  when she is on her way,

  what she will look like,

  or how long she will stay,

  but like the moon,

  she is always coming.

  so darling, pull your curtains back,

  keep your windows wide open

  and every room inside of you unlocked,

  healing is coming.

  day six

  remember this:

  your heart is both

  your softest place

  and your strongest muscle.

  it breaks. and beats.

  at the same time.

  day seven

  when you lose a habit,

  which became a function,

  which became love—

  the body will want to replace it.

  or put it back in place

  almost immediately.

  but you take your time.

  you let your body know

  it can survive without it.

  day eight

  sit with your pain.

  hold its hand.

  it is as scared

  as you are.

  day nine

  cry.

  put the fire out.

  darling, you are still burning.

  day ten

  whenever you feel

  the thickness of guilt

  forming in your mouth,

  swallow it.

  as quickly and as hard as you can.

  for the body knows best

  how to break it down

  into forgiveness.

  day eleven

  despite all that she’s been through,

  the earth keeps on spinning

  and like mother like daughter,

  so do you.

  day twelve

  honey, everything.

  every. thing.

  is happening as it should be.

  day thirteen

  try to retrace your steps.

  go back to the places

  where you gave

  too much of yourself.

  mark them all.

  never go back again.

  day fourteen

  you may both share the same name

  and occasionally look in the mirror

  and see one another at the same time.

  but darling, do not confuse

  who you were

  with who you are.

  day fifteen

  the scariest thing about healing

  is blowing up buildings.

  watching the giant walls

  fall slowly. you know hurt.

  you’ve lived inside her so long

  that you don’t know anything

  about being the architect

  of your own home.

  now, from above the wreckage,

  this is the time to learn.

  day sixteen

  there are towers of hurt

  inside all of us.

  each hurt

  piled on top of the other

  some days,

  threatening to fall.

  some days,

  falling.

  but you

  survived,

  and now,

  here you are,

  standing on top

  of your tower of hurts.

  look down.

  look down.

  see how far you have come.

  day seventeen

  pain doesn’t wilt,

  it blooms in silence.

  speak it

  back into the earth.

  day eighteen

  before you ever let regret

  spend the night—or two—

  know that you will not

  be able to bury him in the morning.

  truth is,

  regret is one of the only things

  that lives longer than we do.

  day nineteen

  darling,

  even in the riptide of anger,

  stay in love.

  love drowns anger

  every. time.

  day twenty

  after your lungs take a breath,

  you do it.

  your lungs breathing

  and you taking a breath

  are not the same thing.

  day twenty-one

  the world can

  do its best,

  and blow

  and blow

  and blow

  but

  your fire

  is fierce

  and lit

  inside you.

  day twenty-two

  forgive them

  for what they could not give you.

  now,

  give it to yourself.

  day twenty-three

  i hope you learn the soft way

  that holding on

  to what must go,

  or what has gone

  won’t make a hero

  out of you.

  it’s letting go that requires

  the most strength.

  do it,

  and i promise

  you’ll draw from muscles

  you never knew you had.

  day twenty-four

  and now

  that your hands

  are not filled

  with another body,

  feel yours

  for the knots.

  then untie

  every lie

  they ever told you

  about you

  from you.

  darling, please

  take your time.

  unpick them

  as slowly

  as they

  un

  picked

  you.

  day twenty-five

  when your heart

  is thirsty:

  do not settle

  for rainfall.

  wait

  for the flood.

  day twenty-six

  honey,

  be still. be patient.

  peace is always busy

  working her way back to you.

  day twenty-seven

  do you think that the night

  ever questions whether the day

  will come and swallow her darkness?

  do not doubt for a second,

  a beginning is coming.

  a beginning is coming

  to eat all your endings whole.

  day twenty-eight

  when your loved ones come

  armed with plows,

  ready and willing to help you

  nurture your heartland,

  open the door.

  let them.

  for you can only grow alone

  and harvest yourself so much.

  day twenty-nine

  darling, you mustn’t forget

  the heart breaks once, twice

  maybe a few times in a whole life.

  but one hundred thousand times a day,

  your heart pounds,

  your heart stays.

  day thirty

  each morning

  ask your heart

  how it would like

  to be loved

  and each day,

  do that.

&nb
sp; day thirty-one

  only water what comes back.

  you cannot force dead flowers to grow.

  thankfully,

  your smiles

  will always be seeds.

  plant them,

  indiscriminately

  and everywhere.

  day thirty-two

  twice before sunrise, soak

  in deep, deep love with yourself.

  stay, long enough to cleanse the wounds

  beneath the wounds you cannot see.

  they are the ones that need it the most.

  day thirty-three

  write

  until you’re not sure

  whether the poems are healing you

  or you are healing the poems.

  day thirty-four

  be thankful.

  love has beaten you

  tender,

  as it was supposed to.

  day thirty-five

  a list of the things you know now:

  better.

  better.

  better.

  day thirty-six

  take words

  and art

  and love

  and dreams.

  and water yourself

  daily.

  day thirty-seven

  honey, beware—there may be storms coming that shake

  your branches until you don’t have a leaf left. but never,

  never, let them pull you from the roots.

  day thirty-eight

  tend to the relationship you have with yourself.

  first.

  last.

  always.

  III. R E C O V E R Y

  years after the fire,

  i read somewhere

  that trees spend their lives

  building walls around

  their wounds so

  they never spread.

  and i couldn’t help

  but think how different

  our roots would be

  if people did that.

  nobody ever tells you

  that saving yourself,

  usually, always from yourself

  is the whole story.

  we spend our beginnings

  and middles

  desperately trying

  to rewrite the end.

  honey,

  be kinder to your story.

  you are the first

  and only draft.

  with every apology,

  there is a language we learn.

  sometimes our scars say things

  we will never understand.

  and so—

  i will say to my daughter

  and her daughter,

  “see your beauty

  without a compliment

  or a mirror.”

  who taught you

  that the value

  of a woman

  is the ratio

  of her waist

  to her hips?

  or the circumference

  of her buttocks

  to the volume

  of her lips?

  your math is

  dangerously wrong.

  her value

  is nothing less

  than infinite.

  let’s not tell our girls that the most precious thing they own

  is a flower between their legs. something they can lose.

  something that can be plucked. instead, let’s tell them

  that they are sacred gardens. and every flower they grow

  in their lifetime matters. and if they should lie under bodies

  they one day regret, they should never feel like crushed petals,

  too damaged to be healed or to be loved. no one has died.

  there is no such thing as a body count. tell them: the most

  precious thing about you, has always been you.

  our bodies

  like land,

  crave water

  and understanding.

  emptiness means

  there are places in you

  you are not done fully loving.

  honey, remember that we are more fiber than flesh.

  we fray.

  we don’t lose ourselves.

  we unravel,

  slowly.

  pay close attention.

  travel yourself first.

  the world,

  later.

  there are too many of us accepting lovers who say:

  “i partially love you.”

  when you leave,

  a new voice

  takes your place.

  i spend the night whispering

  sweet somethings

  into my own ear.

  it’s true,

  there was a time

  when a call from you

  would make me spring

  into full bloom.

  your voice would

  offer me petals,

  and i would scatter

  my roots onto the base

  of your drums, secretly

  hoping to sow seeds

  of forget-me-nots.

  but please

  do not think

  that you were,

  or ever will be,

  my sun.

  imagine:

  i was a whole

  country of love

  before you

  discovered me.

  before you

  “discovered me,”

  imagine:

  i was already full,

  i was already found.

  they say—

  be careful of what you let

  into your heart.

  it

  may never leave.

  but,

  i survived every one of your goodbyes.

  when i am still

  and think,

  of all the little miracles

  happening inside of me—

  i

  can barely

  breathe.

  honey, who said that the love of your life

  had to be a man or a woman

  you haven’t even met yet?

  maybe, you are destined to be

  the greatest love of your own life.

  you could spend your whole life

  waiting for the moon to moan your name.

  but nobody, nobody can yearn for you

  like you.

  no, darling.

  yo(u) complete you.

  fill yourself

  with yourself.

  when love arrives

  it should never say,

  am i the only love here?

  remember,

  you are sacred land.

  choose your travelers

  wisely.

  loving yourself is magical,

  but it is not magic.

  it is an unremarkable,

  necessary decision.

  you can’t pour yourself into someone else

  and wait for their love to refill you.

  listen to the waters.

  they will always warn you when

  the river you have been left

  gasping from,

  leads nowhere.

  honoring your breath first

  is the beginning of everything

  and the end of everything else.

  you can’t make them stay.

&nbs
p; and no.

  you didn’t make them leave.

  you are more than more than enough.

  and maybe you gave him

  more love

  than his heart could hold.

  honey, what you crying for?

  didn’t you know?

  didn’t somebody tell you,

  a deep remarkable love

  should scar you?

  when your heart breaks,

  the next time you’ll love

  either twice as hard

  or only with one half.

  your soul

  doesn’t have bones

  for a reason.

  find someone

  who speaks

  to the quietest

  parts of you.

  and doesn’t say

  a word.

  if everyone understood your beauty

  it wouldn’t be nearly as magic.

  poems are trapdoors

  to our secret selves.

  we bury our dreams

  in open graves

  and wonder why

  they haunt us.