Sometimes I wonder—
how could they do it?
Take her,
leave her shoes behind.
Isn’t the soul sewn into what we wear?
They said to not
ask why.
Don’t judge.
What is in the other is in me.
They don’t know
how this heart came to be.
I was her.
I will be her, any day now.
Still,
they ask for hands to hold,
they clean the room,
they carry on.
So we keep our stories flowing.
Invent new ones,
cover the paths behind us,
pray they never return.
They say:
you’re only here to hold yourself.
Yet, I was passed
unspoken pain.
And she got hers.
My back aches
with wounds I’ve never met.
My body speaks
a language
taught long before
I had pain of my own to pass.
You see why I look up
and keep wondering?
Why up?
These lines have been
threaded from the ground.