mantra while applying eye makeup

I am desirable! I am ferocious! I am the keeper of the lion’s tongue!

my body is perfect in the way it functions

in the way it beats along without knowing, like a bookmark in an unread book

why shouldn’t someone be put to rest in the space between my lashes? why shouldn’t someone find solace in the quiet spoon between my ear and neck?

my valentine fingers, the tiny microscopic buds gripping my hair, the way my skin flushes at the tiniest change in the air

my body is of the cosmos, it knows intimately the magnetic structure of the earth, it hears the radio wave cry at the edge of the universe, pink and static, finding the way like a cloud of dust escaping hatch-marked couch cushions

my third eye is somewhere near the ocean, my third ear a knob deep in the folds of a tree

my second heart is in the desert, padding in the naked brush like a lizard, dodging fossils.

skyscraper song, my body is a song, spider web limbs, sturdy and long

what a shame to not love it unconditionally