for all the stars i tried to steal
i’d always hoped my fingertips would be
the right amount of gentle to pluck you
out whole, but i could never find the root
of what drew me so close. trying to see
the stillness but settling into staleness
instead; the safeness of accepting a
guaranteed nothing over searching out
hapless skies and sharp corners and splintered
outlines. if my worries had weight, i could
piece together the three generations
of bruises on my knees. i could separate
our cursives, feel something other than the
dust settling on my bones or the pluck of
a second hand. we are the sum of
gentleness and every fracture caused by
its absence– we break it to pieces to
comprehend it when we should welcome it
in. hidden in exhales, in the fissures
we become attached to, in our first
tentative steps toward clearing the fog.
we are loved more than we can ever know.
22.03.2020
