Fragility

I have tried to keep all of my words inside of a smooth, pink  binded book
To keep them from being swallowed up, gulped by the passersby like coca cola, or wine.

And I have tried to keep my worries all in one sentence. Letting them out only when the sky is dark and
the people have all hidden in their dirt houses from nocturnal ideology that might mar their fine china minds.

I have kept my voice reedy and dry, lest I let the passion leak out from little holes that make their
way up from my burning, turning stomach when I hear the whispering of trees that have fallen to man’s devices

I keep my fingers dry, for the wet is temptuous and instability is an enemy if you are of the genetic makeup that shakes and shivers and slithers and croons out songs that only wish they really existed.

I keep my strength in an clear etched glass vial, because anything as solid as strength must hide its true fragility.

I keep my hope close to the sun, and my worries in my pillow so that I only cracksplinterseparate when I try to rest,

And I keep my love in someone else’s heart. Not just because that’s what Regina Spektor told us to do, but also because his chest is much safer, much more reliable and stable than mine.

My body is kept up by little men that scamper between my red blood cells and refuse to eat red meat. They say that if only the body could get a little more green, a little more white, a little more light, they really wouldn’t mind their jobs.

My palms are always holding, always giving, always molding little statues of my happiness to remind the people around me that I am more than a clay idol in the kiln burning to be painted.

I am simple and free, shaky as I may be. I am a forgotten phone conversation, made of patched together words from books in the shelves and shelves and shelves of my house. I am my own two feet grasping at the earth and I am a bird, but mostly feathers who have found their way into the shape of the sky.