Topography of my body

My body is mountains disguised in flesh

Fields of grain waving in the breeze

My body is plateaus and canyons 

And every hill you’ve ever climbed

So it’s time I learn to stop hating the landscape 

My eyes are shimmering swamps

Leading to the depths of my soul

My unsinkable smile is the boat that

carried the sailors home again

And I am learning not to call her titanic 

My feet are the arching stones that 

Are somehow still standing

Balanced on peaks that defy belief 

And my ears are the caverns

Where wind blows to become music

But I am only a tourist here

Lost in my own forest 

This is not the wooded menagerie I once called home

This is the barren desert of my bed sheets

The cold rain in the taiga of my cheek bones

But my heart is the molten core here

She sings out to you with explosive volcanos

Magma making my words seem spiteful 

But I am not the smoke clouds

The billowing grays that streak the sky

No, that is my love for you

Blowing away with the breeze

But scorching the earth so I’ll never forget

How it felt to be in love

Sending toxins falling to earth

Reminding me of the poison you gave me

And the pain it took to let you go