its tactful complexities come to the surface to see how much sunlight it can gather. Taking root, it convinces me that every plane I get on will only touch down in pieces, scattered across plains where nobody exists. It reminds me of how human I am when death takes someone away from their lives and into the Earth. These receptors, they rush for a safe landing even when my heart doesn’t brace itself. It tells all of my muscles to squeeze–hold, hold, hold, then let go. It’s alright, everything is okay it tells itself. You will learn to allow your heart to take up such a space that you come home to yourself every night. This heart, it tracks throughout this body–backstroke, breaststroke, butterflying into every tomorrow I’ve seen, reminding me how much of a gift life can be. These cracks, they’ve always managed to heal themselves before cutting open again. This blood continues to want, tumbles itself into itself every second, every third, every fourth. I’ll never know a heartache I haven’t craved since the beginning; ever since each person left me alone long enough for the anxiousness of a young heart to make a joke out of everything (me). This body, it feels too much. It’s never enough. It’s a reminder that broken things stay broken, time doesn’t heal all wounds, we just learn how to deal with the broken pieces a little better every day. All this heavy lifting and never strong muscles, only carbon copies of who I’ve been before now.
R. Francis Williford 