We Three

by Danielle Boursiquot

They vibrate between my vocal chords, but I never let them pass my lips.
I don’t write them down, for fear of losing the last thin thread of hope to some soul snatching ether.
My cloak of secrecy weighs on these clandestine visits to memory. I imagine my last steps thundering across a flaming threshold when it finally comes time to call their names. But it does not happen this way.

Heart Pierced by A Sword (The Girl)

I thought after everything, I needed a mark
Adornment from the thing earned or the thing survived
The embrace of silk, slipping
The weight of a crown, falling
But ink on skin
a declaration,
a confession,
a prayer
all rolled into one
A wordless thing to say to you:
You were named for the one carrying both the scar and the sword.

Iron (The Boy)

At the turning of the tide I paused for a sign.
I stood in the quiet space
away from roaring water, trembling earth,
The hungry blaze growing with every desperate gulp of air
I closed my eyes for the vision, but it remained black, blank, then fluorescent white.
I listened for the heartbeat, craning to decipher a message in the rhythm:
It faded more the harder I listened
And the lines deepened in my empty hands.
You were named for the one forged in flames.

Unidentified, Unsober, Fall Spirit (Gender Unknown)

I fell hard while climbing my way to you
I swallowed sound and coughed up the primary colors of what you could become
I took backward steps while reaching to our future, trembling before our fate
The soles of my feet bled from the barefoot miles walked on someone else’s back
I rode in the shadows of my conviction, silent, hoping that I would be seen by someone recognizing me as yours
You were named for the dance between the light and the dark.

“We have names
that she dares not breathe.
We live in an orb of silence.
Joining hands, we signal her.
She knows who we are”