Sierra DeMulder Quotes

the person who did this to you is broken. Not you.
The person who did this to you is out there,
choking on the glass of his chest.
It is a windshield
and his heartbeat is a baseball bat:
regret this, regret this.

Nothing was stolen from you.
Your body is not a hand-me-down.
There is nothing that sits inside you holding your worth,
no locket that can be seen or touched,
fucked from your stomach to be left on concrete.

Breathing is not the process of being filled
and emptied: breathing is the act
of actually making love to the whole world,
which is to say the world is
your lover, which is to say love the whole
world, in all sweaty folds
and scabbed pockmarks, which is to say
love your dirty corners, your
stalk-like legs and barrel hips, love all
the no and the no and the no
that brought you rigth here, to this moment
and love the yes. The yes:
the breath that found its way to you, built
a home in your blood cells,
changed itself to better suit you and for it,
tonight, you say: I was made to
breathe and move and give, which is to say love.
Love. I was made to love.

God Bless Your Fingers

Ten sugar-dipped strawberries. Ten humming sailors. Let the church say amen. Let the chapel doors open and open again. Ten gentle explorers who found my body buried inside itself. Who can see in the dark. Who can baptize me from across the continent. Let the church of my legs say bless. Let the church of my breasts say oh god. You have found the presents I hid from you. You have grown in me a basin I can never fill. Ten wise men. Ten pilgrimages across my stomach. Ten lit candles. Ten holy ghosts. I am a séance. I am a séance.

Your body is not a temple.
Your body is the house you grew up in.
How dare you try to burn it to the ground.
You are bigger than this.
You are bigger
than this.

My sister told me a soul mate is not the person
who makes you the happiest but the one who
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart
to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in.
It has always been you.
-Love, Forgive Me

You, this clump of cells, this happy explosion that happened to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever is up there, you got here.

You made it this whole way: through the nights that swallowed you whole, the mornings
that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel,

the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt
is over. Today, you made it. You made it.

You made it here.

tonight
in yoga, I realized for the first time

that breathing is not the process of being filled
and emptied: breathing is the act

of actually making love to the whole world

It Rained for Two Days Straight

Yesterday, Ryan told me his grandfather was admitted to the hospital. It was raining the way it rains in the movies, like whoever does the dishes left the faucet running, heavy drops polishing everything in the city dark. We ran from one drooling awning to the next, quicker, then slower, quicker, slower. If one had watched from the sky, our bodies would have looked like two small needles being pulsed forward by some invisible machine, stitching the streets together. Today, Patric was left by a girl he did not love but did not not love. He told me it was impossible to imagine himself both alone and whole. It was still raining--the sky's silly metaphor for sadness, untimely, startling, the way it makes the whole world more honest. Death is like this, too. Heartache, also. The sudden absence of what was there but now not. I touched Patrick's shoulder, attempting to pass my human to his. I sent Ryan a poem. I cannot do more than this art of bearing witness, to be both the bucket and the mirror, to say, yes, you are here but I am here also, to say you won't be here forever, or to say nothing and just walk beside each other in the rain.

Your body is the house you grew up in. How dare you try to burn it to the ground.

Writing a list of ways I could be better
and writing a suicide note
are the same thing

Tonight in Yoga

I realized I have been afraid of meditation
my whole life, which is to say,

I have been afraid of myself my whole life

I loved you head over handles
like my first bicycle accident
before the mouthful of gravel and blood,
I swore we were flying.
-Cycle of Abuse

When he sleeps,
the snoring does not bother me:
the rhythmic growl, gravel shoved
across the sidewalk of his throat.
It is the grasping, desperate way
in which he takes in air - his gulping lungs
as if every dream is filled with water
and he is trying to inflate
the life jacket under his skin.
I babble in my sleep. He believes
I am trying to tell him how my heart works,
says he will translate the manual one day.
I want to ask him: am I the ocean?
Are you drowning in everything
I don't say when I'm awake?
- Heart Apnea

Livia, your words are weapons; your voice
is the strength it takes to wield them.
Better yet, let's free ourselves of violence

as you have only ever been a valiant
champion of tenderness. Livia, your words
are lightening bugs. Your voice is the darkness

that allows them to glow. Please know
every sound you have ever made and will
ever make will always lead to grace.

You wonder why I don't
answer your 3 a.m. phone calls.
When you say "I miss you",
I begin to undress myself out of habit.

Mantra to Overcome Depression

Vitamin D. Sunlight. Go
outside. Get a good night

of sleep. Not too good.

Not shades drawn forever
good. Not like you used to.

Open the windows.

Buy more houseplants.
Breathe. Meditate. One day,

you will no longer be

afraid of being alone
with your thoughts.

Exercise. Actually exercise

instead of just Googling it.
Eat well. Cook for yourself.

Organize your closet, the

garage. Drink plenty of
water and repeat after me:

I am not a problem

to be solved. Repeat after me:
I am worthy I am worthy

I am neither the mistake nor

the punishment. Forget to take
vitamins. Let the houseplant die.

Eat spoonfuls of peanut butter.

Shave your head. Forget
this poem. It doesn't matter.

There is no wrong way

to remember the grace of your
own body; no choice

that can unmake itself.

There is only now, here
look: you are already

forgiven.

You are a souvenir shop, where he goes to remember how much people miss him when he is gone.