Say it: say that I am dead, and I’ll root my feet into the earth, unfold my lips: into petals: into your palms, shed summer from my shoulders.

There is a time for winter, for mending the bones, freezing off the dead things so new life can grow more lush, more violet.

The slabs of ice caked over my irises will melt into lakes, these lips one day will bloom. But summer has lasted a decade: I am in the winter of my youth.