Words spill out of my mothers mouth Like a gumball machine Some are soft as cotton Others are as hard and heavy as lead It is all she feeds me And it is all I swallow Year after year She gets lighter And I get taller I flew across the world Tasted all different flavors And when I met strangers They’d ask me “What’s that sound” A jingle of my belly A rattle when I laugh A reminder of my home made meals And when I see my mother again She opens her mouth Out falls a small shiny

Some people are made of flower petals, or hard, stony rocks. Some are black holes draining the light from everyone nearby. Some people carry the elements inside: water, wind, earth, metal and me: fire. My mother once brought home a psychic who told her I was too much fire. Said to drape the room in blue with curtains, sheets, my clothes too to cool the heat that lives in me. A little color theory. But there’s a small ember tucked beside my lungs deep flames simmering like the