Poem a Day 2026

you know i don’t want to write this/ you know i have to. i was working downstairs and you were working up, when all of a sudden your voice got much louder, because you were talking about me to someone who wasn't, speaking into existence the disposing your becoming required. a pixelated phoenix formed and the decorative wood woman, frozen in impossible arch, bounced a bit of blocked winter light at me from her hipbone. despite how her body had been carved, she became my only friend, as you became the opposite. trained compassion spit on the blue ink of everything. whisked the two coiled tadpoles floating in the bathtub so they spiraled down the drain like wind. and when i told you i had heard your chilled calm claims, you fell to the wood woman’s ground, crumpled like a toddler who wants something not enough on sale. i tousled your curls the way a demon cat purrs, my heart a choking faucet, wishing you had learned to steal, to fight, wishing you were brave enough to cut off my sleeping hair and make from it something beautiful beyond betrayal. inside of me, blood soldiers loaded their boats and vinegar churned. i did not become something cosmic miraculous of earth of god. i did not become a butterfly or a mother. i was the mixed color of everything, growing harder to see. but your hair burned that terrible smell and mine turned lightning white.