Yashira Colón-Jiménez
On Your Chest
Lay your hand on your chest,
Count out the thumps under your fingertips.
Because baby girl,
Metal is cold against your skin,
You bleed red like the rest of us.
Baby girl,
All you taste is salt when you talk.
But every atom in you wants to live,
Every part of you wants to go on,
Even in the pain.
You are alive.
Lay your hand on your chest,
Count out the thumps under your fingertips.
Because baby boy,
Nails rip your skin apart,
You bleed red, like the rest of us.
Baby boy,
Tears are water, and salt,
Not weakness, and despair.
Tears that are salt on your lips,
When you talk like broken glass shattered on your tongue.
Hold your breath,
Your lungs,
They burn until you gasp again.
Even in the pain,
Every part of you wants to live.
Remember the clichés;
Breathing the Universe,
As you breathe in it.
Where every atom that makes your body,
Once broke apart from the dying throws of the end of a
Star.
Because the Light isn’t just in what you see,
Just at the end of the wick on the right side,
Of a candle,
The sunny end of a tunnel,
The lamp someone’s left on for you to come home.
You are Light,
Light you can’t even see,
All around us,
As you struggle to remember how to live.
But live.
Baby, live…
Even in cowardice,
Because some will call it that…
The pain is a reminder you are alive,
Even when you want it to go away…
It will one day, and you should be around for that.
Lay your hand on your chest,
Count out the thumps under your fingertips…
Find yourself in the stars,
In the Light,
And let yourself cry out salt…
Scars will heal,
Just give yourself another chance,
Baby, live.