Shatter

People ask me

How have you been?

How are you?

I want to say

Please don’t make me say.

Please just be a safe place

for my brittle heart.

Thank you for asking, but

let me be broken without telling you

all the details.

It is too big of a question.

How do I answer

How have you been?

without breaking

all over again?

I want to answer. I want to

desperately.

But I am afraid there is no

safe place

for my darkness.

It is my deepest desire to be asked

to share

every detail

down to the most seemingly

insignificant ache of my fingers

when I started my car in the cold

last week and the steering wheel

felt like gripping ice and I pushed

away the luxury of feeling anything

and was jealous my windshield had a

defrost mode

but I do not.

Please don’t ask me

How have you been?

Unless you mean

Nothing you have to say is

too much, too dark, too heavy. Here is a

safe place for you. Thaw your heart.

I promise I will not add to your pain.

I want to answer, so desperately.

I want nothing more than to tell you

how I was brave, but everything

feels too fragile.

How have I been?

I don’t know where to begin.

What I want: to be held, so that I

can shatter in safety.

(I wrote this poem 2 months ago, but now it feels long enough ago that it can be shared and I will be okay.)