Sometimes she breaks and all the world
breaks with her – though the world will
gimp along a bit better, it will not do so
with the same determination she has
even on the days when it rains
and the bed is more comfortable
than the glare of eyes she must face
on any given day after she walks
out the door and before she comes
again to the same sacred space.
Sometimes she breaks and she breaks
alone; the untidy sum of all our fears
bearing down on her back,
some 21st Century Atlas with the world
bearing down and breaking her down –
except for her resolve, which people
who do not know better mistake
for blind optimism or naivete. But
what they do not know – and I think
what she does not know either –
is that she silently takes on
their fears and makes them her own.
Sometimes she breaks and when she cries
I am at a loss because I have long since
forgotten how to cry – and there is nothing
I can say, and even my arms
are not strong enough to hold her
and the world of worries she bears
on her back without regret
or the slightest hint
that she will ever learn to simply
let it all fall in pieces to the ground.