Kintsugi

The heart beats radiate out,

earthquakes from the epicentre of my being.

With my ear pressed to the mattress,

I hear it rumble. The pulse

of my body; the proof of my living, my

breathing.

Sometimes it feels like everything I touch

shatters. Like the magnitude of my heart

is too strong for anyone or anything to handle.

Sometimes I hold myself back from holding

just in case I make a break by accident;

I am not a master of mending - I cannot seal

your cracks with gold, you have to learn how

yourself.

Like I did.

That’s why no one can ever tell

how often my whole self - body and soul -

has splintered under the force of my own

undeniable

existence.

The rumbles cease; the aftershocks,

the followers and the precursors

to the main event - so quiet now

they bleed into the history of my being

even as I seal the wounds shut.

No wonder my hands shake; they know their work

will be in vain.

But the history of every war

is written in the hand of the victors,

and my stories will be told,

even after the earth reclaims me

as her own.