an endeavour

and scratch a new type of kindness

into my trachea

I'll always be velocity in equilibrium,

always move too fast for my soul

but if I can make my mark in units of joy,

can forge meaning from violent refuse

then maybe I won't need the parts of me

that plant their feet in sallow ground

But i don't quite like the fact

That I'm having to relearn how

To occupy a body

At 22

And 23

In a way, so many rules

Have changed overnight

And i struggle to grasp

Which of the multitude of

Changing variables

Is to blame for my latest

Set of sufferings

I feel at once both infant and infirm

In the years which many have considered

To be their body's peak

And while I'm not quite relearning to walk

Even a baby can open their mouth

When the airplane comes by

I wish that I'd been stronger

Been smarter

To embrace my changing body

With arms wide open

Rather than to be caught off guard

As i struggled with basic tasks

I wish I didn't have to laugh

And say that my gums were bleeding

And my skin was cracking

And i couldn't stand up without

The world spinning around me

That i couldn't wake

And i couldn't sleep

And that i couldn't eat

Until i was starving,

Too nauseous to cook

When all I'd wanted was

For food to be a celebration

I wish that I had a single adult year

That i didnt have to define by trauma

I wish I didn't have to relearn

Every lesson id already learned

And i guess i wish the world

Could do so wild a thing

while it lives in you

it is not kind

and the thing about compassion

is that it comes in such limited supply

(but we wouldn't be able to meter it at all

if there wasn't such incentive

to put it on a scale)

and the thing about generosity is

that there's only so much of yourself

that you can give

and we forgave each other,

but i think i was still feigning ignorance

about all the things you'd done.

how telling, then, that i still haven't learned

how to stop swallowing it all down.

i don't think we so much as burned that bridge

as the bridge collapsed

under the weight of its own rot.

life will never be so simple or so kind

as to produce a tallyman,

but the ones I create within me can

rest assured with the knowledge that i,

for my part, tried my very best

but then, that's never saved anyone before,

at not making eye contact with

crashing trains

i don't want to think quite yet

what this says about the person

foreign and strange and ill fitting

and i, unprepared for guests,

but having prepared my entire life

for every eventuality but this,

find myself a final fraying thread

away from being adrift, lost

in a sea, well charted by others not

myself

and i find myself at a loss, unable

to grip and wrench back, and set

things right, set things back into

the way they should be. and i've

lost time and I've lost words and

i've severed the cord that i once

could use to communicate.

on purpose, i inhabit this abyss

like I ache to fulfill the prophecy

and i know i have the same right to life as anyone but all perspective has offered me is a tighter and tighter box in which to squeeze myself

and i can't fix everything in the same way that i can't even fix myself