Nguyet Mai

You didn’t know how to scan poetry,
never read Dickinson or Bukowski.
Your words were strung together not like a song, but a child’s drawing:
messy and straightforward.
But, baby, you were the true poet:
the way you lit up my insides
when you talked about one day
tackling the Himalayan mountains,
fishing in distant lakes,
treading one point of the earth to another— the way you pushed yourself to be mentally
and physically stronger every day,
motivating me also to take care of myself,
the way you pushed your heart back
into place, jumping out of the airplane
that one time when we went sky diving, the way you were brave enough to love me,
a girl so lost, confused, and inherently broken, the way you were gentle to me when
all I could be was hard,
the way you planted so much
water and sunlight into me
that I couldn’t help but grow
into the woman
that I was meant
to be.
Through you,
I became
the poet
who
finally
became
someone’s
poem.