I remember when my lungs were clean,
my brain understood how
to properly control my voice, my mouth
didn’t bumble and stumble over bunny-slope words,
I knew what having a friend meant.
My joints were always aching with the growing pains
my soul never learned how to cope with, and now
they crack under the weight of my disappointments—
these cans on the shelves weren’t what
ten-year-old me expected, I guess—and the stress
of having to earn my right to live.
Counterfactuals turn wishful thinking into hate-speech
echoing in my brain. Boston seems nice, sometimes,
but admitting that means I’m not happy, so I’ll ignore
my popcorn knees and cracker-jack shoulders for now and
smile emptily at the serene scenery.
My heart now hangs differently in my chest, dangling
from a thread stretched so thin that it bobs
like a buoy in the harbor my ribs make, marking me
at my core, existing only as the center of an empty space
between the crying galaxies that have grown in my lungs.
About the Creator
Abrin B Clearway
Abrin is a queer, mixed-race Millenial who loves music, art, literature, and equality.
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