If I did a census
of the words I use over and over,
it would include
words like stars, love, rain, water,
elemental things.
Stars because there are so many
to pick from the sky,
love because there was never enough
and I long for more,
rain because it is my birth water
and feels like tears,
and water,
because I am surrounded
by its sea, and find harbors in it.
But there is an exceptional world
of names,
that belong to only one universe,
one pair of eyes,
one mouth with its smile,
one heartache that lives in mine.
One story to be told
and never repeated.
Names in which my own
has found its existence.
Have left a shape on me,
and created
a place to begin and end,
until there are no more words
to use.