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Elizabeth, you of the tender heart that you wrap in steel wool, how you are always sending your eyes to the future, sending them with a packed lunch, and prayers, scribbled onto the inside of the sleeves of their coat, water in a thimble, the one you were given from your grandmother’s things, small, glittery spells that teach them how to come home, how you are always sniffing the air for the first signs of what you have seen before, only to be ready, only to be ready, only to be ready, not ever wanting to lose the control that might save you.

all the lies you lean on just to feel secure.

Elizabeth, you of the bones who know how to stand in the midst of storms, you of the tired femurs, the worn-out spine, you have to give others possession of their own choices, you have to teach yourself how to let go of them.

allow them the freedom to wander about within their own lives, naming their days as they want, pouring the water, whether brackish, or fresh, and you are not the cup, and you do not have to hold the contents.

you are not a lifeboat, nor a rope, and you with your hips and your father’s mother’s thighs, despite what religion might have allowed you as a home, all the woman-shaped rules, you are neither answer, nor failure.

you are Elizabeth, dweller of your own borders, mammal-hearted body wrapped around the light that is your spirit.

teach yourself where you end, and where others begin. be wary of fuzzy edges. learn to let go.

breathe your own air. eat your own disappointments. rub your joys into your own skin.

make peace with everything that you keep alive in the corners, all the things you have named ‘disappointment’.

stop watering what you don’t want to harvest. not everything deserves the light.

allow all the small deaths that you keep turning your face from, allow them to happen, so that you might welcome life.

Elizabeth, you of the waiting days, the hungry months, the lean years, open your hands.

— words with Elizabeth, who was given the name ‘you-must-save-me-from-myself’

© liezel graham 2025