Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Triptych #3 : 18.01.2023

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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