Thirst

By: Kyle Elden

This pain calls me out
of locks and cages
breaks open the toughest
parts of me
like a stone down upon
a coconut in the middle of market
splitting apart round brown shell
revealing the soft white meat
spilling its sweet milk

I don’t understand
I don’t understand
I can’t understand
now

But it is love that trickles down
like sweat from my forehead,
across my upper lip, between my
breasts and on my low back, sweat
through this brutal climb

thirst gripping tightly
my throat, my dry lips
a thirst only for forgiveness, and

for letting the truth
stand
in the light of this new day,
dripping with the past,
puddles forming around
what was, what has been, what
happened

a thirst to say goodbye
to the past
with only tenderness
for the rough and jagged brokenness
for the soft and supple beauty