Like the plants growing out of sidewalk that everyone walking by calls marvelous
Like the bee that stings the person who’s never been stung
Like donating blood when you’re anemic
Like an ant surviving underneath a microscope
Like this is the exception
Like this isn’t you not your organs not your skin not your bones
Like I could sign the letters I wrote to you
Like a windshield in a hailstorm
Like this is any different
Like the way everyone you’ve ever known loves—through loss
Like the avalanche lurking in the snow
Like this would ever be different
Like burying a loved one
Like I would be any different
Like pinching yourself in preparation for the needle’s bite
Like I could pull myself together just this once
Like the problem wasn’t my mirror
Like I knew how to love someone else
Like a dog needing to be put down
Like stitching the moon together in apology
Like I could quilt the moments of peace and cower from the storm
Like I could carve the difference from my body
Like a cigarette coating my lungs
Like every welt of ink could repair my mess
Like this would ever last
Like I wasn’t the one to let go
Like the way a wounded animal bites first
“Like I could pull myself together just this once
Like the problem wasn’t my broken mirror
Like I knew how to love someone else
Like a dog needing to be put down”
(Watch me paste the entire poem in my comment bc I can’t choose a favorite ❤️ I need your book yesterday so I can actually annotate your work)
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