Unloading

Unpacking the scraps

Spelunking into the cave of cardboard chaos
The geology of me
Layers of a life
before the earth quake
before the fault line of fault shifted
And i do’s
Became i don’t

An archeological dig—
artifacts
(all that’s left).
Moments trapped in mementos—
A museum
Or a mausoleum
And there,
under the rubble is one shoe
It’s match didn’t make the trip
Too busy being right to notice that it was
Left
Alone
But my feet cannot be divided so easily as
My time
My mind
loyalty
love
Trust

I hold the crumbs of all of it
In hands that look like hers with eyes that look like his
and feel as if my DNA is uncoupling too
ripping away from each other in disgust
scattered strands

Into atoms
the building blocks of life
Fused together,
they used to say we matter
but split apart
weaponised,
they refused to stay, we shattered
this nuclear family
A ticking time bomb
Radioactive with anxiety
Leaky with rage
Melting down into this
half-life
And now
I am made of cardboard
homeless across two houses
the box is just as flimsy as
the words
the feeling
The meaning of family

So I promise myself that i will never let anyone hurt me like this again
I vow to have an hold onto myself only
The only person who can’t leave you
the only person who can’t lose you
I do

I cannot relate to this new normal they’ve shaped
Its irreconcilable
that’s the word they used.
In cold black words on crisp white paper I am a line item
discussed in terms of ownership
My needs documented as service terms
like care instructions for a housesitter
water twice a day
My voice is nowhere in these pages, but my life is in the ink
And they sign it
shaking their heads and saying
Irreconcilable
This is an excuse, not an explanation
If you get to quit, why can’t i?

You says I’ll understand someday
It’s someday already and I understand
The lesson isn’t in choosing happiness, its in choosing yourself
So here i am unpacking the scraps of a child who believed
And reassembling into the witness who does not

Yes, I am angry
No, I didn’t want you to stay together just for me
I wanted you to stay together so we could all believe
For the same reasons we believe in Black Holes, in Santa, and in God
Because love requires hope
and the world gets smaller and stranger and sadder without magic
without faith
when life becomes cardboard boxes and crap
the whole things seems pretty empty