Fragments of Cassandra

I opened another red sentence
across my skin.

And then another.
And another.

I mistook my body
for a place
where sorrow could be buried.

Deeper 
every time.

So I kept asking it
to carry
what my heart no longer could.

As though enough silence
might one day bloom
from enough suffering.

The walls stopped swaying.

The air returned
to my lungs

like someone
breaking the surface
only long enough
to forget
what it felt like
to drown.

For a moment,
even grief
held its breath.

I became
both artist
and canvas.

Mixing grief
into impossible colors,
painting portraits
of a pain
no one else
could see.

I was not trying
to become broken.

I already was.

I was only searching
for somewhere

to set down
a pain
too enormous
to keep carrying,

a grief
that had outgrown
my own heart.


Be’ahava,
The Mourning Bird