I
To hell with your false bravado
Your obligatory resilience, it bores me to death
Show me instead, your
Injuries, your
Soft open hand
Show me the stubbornness of your trust
And I will open to you like a tasty wound.
II
A broken bone, improperly healed
Must be broken again to reset correctly
I break myself open
One hundred times a day
I'll never heal correctly—
I make certain of it.
This is my demonstration
Against your bootstrap imperative
I hoisted my sign the first time at thirteen, lying half
conscious beneath the
Head cheerleader's mother's wheel
They said I might lose the foot, but
Instead, I gained a gentle new thing
Softness, it turns out, can be stubborn too.
III
Each time I think of your last days in that horrible bed
I'm haunted by your
Swollen blue hands
Toward the end, they'd tied them down so that you couldn't
extubate yourself.
The finality came, your stone hand in mine, I watched your chest heave
Artificially
Long after the screen told me that your heart had stopped.
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