When you came to be inside me,
our bodies decided we would survive,
and we chose a supporting role in all their mysteries
when survival meant nurture and shelter.

Our bodies decided we would survive
when survival meant expulsion.
When you came to be outside me,
we chose a supporting role.

My sideline blood, tears,
sweat, scars, and screams could fill
a lifetime’s worth of dreams for the exiles 
who welcomed you here, even as their own will fill mine.

You rivaled our shouts, 
like you’d yet to forget what the rest of us
had suddenly been forced to recall-
That to survive is always to be a casualty.

Still, we decide,
and you clench your hand around my finger,
as if in thanks, as if in love,
as if in solidarity,

but I think in support 
of our bodies’ natural instincts,
which we wrap around each other,
which we kindle within.