Author: Elizabeth Maynard

There is a scar
where the round entered
and left again
to lodge itself elsewhere
We speak of bullets dodged
but what of those that
found their mark?

I am sad for us
and all our scrambling
to be important
impress strangers
tethered to their own worries
It is a lot to ask of each other:
Hold me (together)
Tell me I am real

How long have you been lost
here in someone else's words in
worlds obscured daily in translation?

Walking home tonight
unleashed, I remember
what it was to stroll together
morning and night
how safe I felt with you
in a menacing world
and now I hope you 
will wag again in welcome
when I, at last
follow you home

Tuesday morning
world on fire
I emerge
all sighs, meconium
and hunger

Be finished with heartache
decide your life is worth more
than every sleepless night spent
hoping you could love
enough for you both

Has the world always been falling
so inexorably apart
or one day do we simply raise
our gaze enough to see
heartbreak after heartbreak?
Here is the truth we daily deny:
We will not leave here alive
you must sing your song today

Beneath every misuse
betrayal of language
lies the silence from which
each truth is born

How much life have we squandered
on worry, on work
meant for other hands?
There is a day, perhaps this one
when we let it all down
let it all go

Tell me again how we met
the where and when
the moment you first loved me
and the one when you remembered
stepped forward
took hold of your courage
became the one you always
meant to be