I broke all of my ribs today.
See, I thought if I could let you see
my heart stutter beating and my lungs
swelling with the air between us,
we could swallow the stardust
in the atmosphere and become
another heavenly body above the world.
I broke all of my fingers today.
See, I thought I could twist
the words into what I needed them
to say, but they remained impossibly immobile,
falling to the ground with every stolen exhale.
I broke my legs today.
See, I thought I could run endlessly
from the ethereal shadow that seeped under
the door in the middle of the night,
but I tripped just like I always do,
and I’m still tethered by my own
tenebrosity like I always have been.
C. Brown 