Some people's lives play
like broken records.
The grooves are carved
into our skin like scars so they can
play and replay and
play and replay like
the grooves of scars that
are carved into our skin, there are
some people whose lives
play like broken records.
We've all seen this
story before.
We can read it with our
fingertips like
Braille is our native
language and we were born with the gift of in-sight
we need only look
to read all about it.
And, I'll admit:
there are days I only
believe her because she asks me to.
She won't always do it
with her words, but she asks me with her eyes
and the slump of her
shoulders
and the way her son
holds my hand
or wraps his arms
around my neck,
or the way her husband
shrugs and looks at his feet
in a gesture of resilience
living as shame refusing to name itself.
They open their hearts like
sunsets inside kaleidoscopes:
fractured, repeating
patterns of glass
reflecting the
reflection of the reflection of the reflection of
the world around them.
We are all so broken.
So human in the way we
touch one another,
and in the ways we
don't, and the ways we can't,
so I don't want to save
the world:
I want only to read words
like reflections
are my native language,
but there are days
when I only believe her
because she asks me to and
some people's lives
play like broken records.
The grooves run track
marks like glass through skin
fracturing the
reflection because
we live a resilience
that refuses to name itself and
no one cares to notice
there is beauty in the repetition.
And, I'll admit: my
record
is scratched and broken.
She sometimes calls me
"Doctor," sometimes "Hon,"
occasionally "Love,"
and I just go with it
because we both know:
sometimes she has more
answers than me,
and schooling doesn't
always equal education,
and I know I'm supposed
to like when she calls me "doctor" best,
but believe me when I
say that some days, it doesn't feel like a compliment, but a scratch
that disrupts our developing
melody
so I like it when she
calls me "Love"
because that's all I've
ever wanted to be.
When they ask me, I
give them every cell that looks like belief, but
I don't know if I
believe in god.
Some days, it seems
that human-kind
-where kind is
questionable -
might have a better
track record,
so I turn up the volume
on the broken records.
We play our songs loud
as we spin through space,
our tears punctuating
the night with stars like exclamation points
blaming or praising or
trying to find the holy we all want to believe is existing
somewhere beyond our
fingertips.
We are all so broken,
so kaleidoscopic
in the ways we shatter.