Final Iteration of "Carry You"

“Carry You”

We are a strong family, a closely knit constellation strung together by our bloodlines
We wanted you to be the banner of our floating ship
A spectacle among the cosmos and believe me,
Your parents, they shot for the stars when they dreamed of making you
But they missed the carriage, and I’m forever sorry

You were an embryonic ball of stardust channeling light years into bone-marrow
That either ran a few smiles short of keeping you lit
Or maybe the halos tracing ventricles didn’t spin fast enough
But even though your mother was the only world you knew
Never forget that you come from the stars

I see you look lost among this interstellar mall
I will take you by your bright little hand
And we’ll have the Milky Way’s customer service desk announce your name via megaphone,
God’s vocal chords,
And we will stand there forever if we have to
I will not leave you until the galaxy’s lights shut down
And the lowering cages leave us nowhere else to go
But back to our mother’s womb
But at least we lived in heaven once
Mother has a piece of heaven living inside of her
And it’s about this big

I know you lived there and remember the songs she sang you
And how she fed you spoonfuls of lullabies
Bedtime prayers
And birthday with photographs
That sink into your exposed heart like promises
All for the first time
And everything tastes so sweet

Mother adored your little body before your limbs
Could develop enough to grasp this concept of love
So no one can ever label you as “doesn’t belong” or “never was”

I even wrote directions to home for you
‘starts on the top of these eyelids
Where you will find a herd of peacocks
Show them the complexion of your shadow
And they will fly you down to the tip of my nose
And I’ll breathe you in like a spore
Feel the touch of the everglades as you make your way
To the back of my throat
Climb down the rungs of my windpipe very gentle like
So as not to wake me up
Crawl under the redwood brow of my collar bone
And you will find a cellar unlike any other cellar
This one has five chambers
With an extra one storing our bloodlines in glass bottles

I will awaken you from your stillborn slumber
I will plant you through the soil of my flesh
My veins will pour needlepoint memoirs in your pupils
My lungs will whistle 3000 proverbs through you nostrils
And when your voice sprouts
Your first birth cries
A harmony of 2 sapling seeds
One sibling body
I will carry you home

Enclothed in the ivy that hemorrhages from these bones I will carry you
The way horizons carry daybreak
I will carry you with arms spread
And we will shine brighter than a Mercury zenith
Our shadows drowning in the glare of their own rebirth
We are invisible again

I will carry you the same way our father carries his last name
In his sleep, in his wake, a signature of veins lies written across his chest
When I find you I will carry you the way you always wanted to be carried
And don’t be afraid to show yourself
So I can reach into your formlessness
Find your face
Lift up your chin
And show you your name:

Julian,
When you finally come home
You can share my birthmarks
If it helps you feel that much more alive