BURN IT ALL DOWN WITH WATER ❋ Adèle Barclay

I’d like to float on okay
but then I read about
the singer from Modest Mouse
I like to joke
the upside of an abusive father
is it teaches one
about the absurd tethers of obligation
love sometimes dwells
with violence
even though that isn’t really love
which is what Irene told me
when I was 26
a revelation
I haven’t fully internalized
but I’ll live with it
a cell with a semi-permeable membrane
inside an organism
inside an ecosystem
I used to study biology
because my father
forbade me
from pursuing literature
moving to Montreal
being gay
eventually I accomplished
all three
it’s okay
now
a lot
of my poems
refer to salt
it’s the only residue