Clouds smother hopeful horizon

I hear the thunder

See the lightening

Made of metal

Struck too many times

Fractured and cracked wide open

Can’t hold it together

All that’s left is

Constant rumbling in my chest

Spreading out

Stealing gravity

Reverse vacuum

Lifetime spent scrambling to

Pick up the pieces

I’m a tin can

A sham

Jagged and sharp

Cheap

Incomplete

Nothing in the right place

Can’t make sense of

Any of this

Bereft

Stumbling round

Blind and deaf

Shock me outta this state

Restart my heart

[1Wise-Woman: “I am living, fighting, and thriving with mental illness and chronic disease and a need to express myself. Writing eases some of the weight I carry.” When she isn’t yanking shadowy strands of leathery clumps of unconscious, and tenderly placing them into word documents, she is creating at A Lion Sleeps in the Heart of the Brave.]