My Purity

it bubbles from the touch of my skin, shimmers in the light of blood within.

my purity can’t be found in the concept of white;

white is milk and chalky, it sticks to your tongue like the pulp of paper

and can’t be found in black either;

black sings us a lullaby, burnt and bristled like the hairs on a horseback.

no, it glistens along the surface

of the red of blood that blooms in bouquets on grazed knees and split lips.

my purity is that translucence,

that incandescent nothingness.

it appears after tears have dried and lives in the space of footprints left in sand, in the blinding sunlight that bounces through frozen breaths.

it is the exhalations released in uncomfortable silences, it is the inhalations stolen from death by love.