I wonder if the moon can see us
As she tucks in her beaches
Loses herself in waves of longing
Pieces carved away as she paces the stage and performs her light
Almost drowns in the inky blue
Until she resurfaces
Lighter without the weight of last month’s burdens
Free to wax new lyrics
She roams the clouds and sings;
I want to be like her
Learn to trust my intuition; a bond that was once severed

My community and I, we follow her
Writing, painting, dreaming
Turning in our sleep
Mumbling spells at 2 am beneath our quilted shores
Stirring paper cauldrons
Lining them with magic words that drip down from our inky fingers;
the first drops in my escape spell
Trickling down the page, in small dribs and drabs
They sound like queer,
                                  queer,
                                           queer
I let the damp peel back prescribed labels,
paper boxes transform into paper mache I’m free to mold
Pools of possibility lapping at my messy shores
Hug my cliffs, erode what’s not needed
Think I’m ready?
to babble, to brook… I want to find new rivers
To listen to more spells

Unlocking something precious, I
Enter
an invisible door, password carved into my invitation, I accept
Safe space in a lockdown, passed down, head down,
Orbiting the warmth, I
unmute my voice
Antidotes laid bare on the page, waiting to be chanted
Trust I’m safe here
Trust the hearts on the line, feel it tug with every beat
Trusting to learn a new bond, never severed:

Twenty writers from twenty skies

Transforming our bedroom desks into pirate ships
We plot the course, exchange words, present sacred letters like
Small compasses
Together we set sail
Across each empty page
My screen becomes the night sky, strangers names as constellations
Help me to navigate the dark, the grey, the worry lapping at my softened shores
I write a protective spell
inside our first zine,
inside our shared parchment,
inside the map we built together,
Pure treasure

Twenty writers of twenty tongues

We are each other’s guardians, staving off each other’s storms,
Offering a space where the sun might slip through
Here be writers, here be artists, here be humans,
Annotating each other’s spell books, we add new words to the cauldron:

Today, I want to write about my body
In a gentle loving way

Twenty writers from twenty stories
 

After buses, after trains
All of us exhale
Replenish
Waxing lyrics, waning voids
The moon rests her head on my shoulder
Closes her eyes, sighs
Coaxes foam crested words onto paper shores, guided by the tug of my wrist
I carve out sanctuary,
I carve out space,
I carve out tools from old escape spells once addressed to a drawer
With the moonlight
With the earthlight
With the blue light
Twenty poems emerging, gasping, splashing
Sailing out to sea

I’m safe.