it simply was.

Boulders and grime and spent seeds in the streams
breathed
with unforgiving moss, spread in silence without protest.

And when copper-brushed rains hushed thrushes into place,
I think I was born.

A name with cragged consonants too many,
uncushioned by forgiving vowels,

you, nonetheless, cradled it gently in your mouth
while you whispered your gracious years into my ear

until the hour you could no longer breathe,
and it caught, excruciatingly, in your throat.

In a desperate, deafening rasp,
you expelled me

from you,

leaving me with myself
and a name now foreign and only my own.

I perch on cliffs that hover precariously
above mercy

from whence my ancestors
crawled

to be flooded by copper-brushed rains.