Poems About L

This poem is not going to pretend it knows what you're feeling.

I know your name but not the one on your driver's license.

They tried to write us out of the story. Edited us to margins.

I woke before you and did nothing about it. The radiator ticked. Your shoulder rose and fell.

My mother carried me before I was a person. Carried me in the dark of her own body.

I know you're tired. I know the kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.

The first month you count the days. The second month you count the weeks.

Because the news tells you what happened but a poem tells you what it felt like.

It starts before you wake. Somehow it's already there.

My brain has no off switch. I've looked.

It's not the number that breaks you. Six million is a statistic so large it becomes abstract.

The sky was the kind of blue that makes you think nothing bad could happen—which is how you know you're still in the before.