I.

Some holes are deliberately made:
The ones in
your father’s wedding shirt
When he was leaving,
Abandoning his old vows for
Ones that seemed better.
Your vision is war-crossed;
Even as you shut your eyes and
Blindly aim with the scissors,
It is the masterpiece of a
crazy artist whose brain
had collapsed.
The torrent of colors is staggering.
Nothing will be the same, and
You wonder how a tower that
Stands on four shoulders can
Survive with only three.
How a heart of four chambers
can survive with three,
barely alive and forced to work.
The earth will continue to rotate,
but it will never be okay,
because people do not stop
for the broken tendons and ligaments of others.
Outside, in the sun, glasses clink,
bits of congratulations sprinkled—
yet on the inside,
it will never be okay.
And those words continue
To play on broken repeat—itwillneverbeokay—
morphing music for a celebration
into one fit for a funeral.

II.

Some holes are accidentally made:
The ripped jeans from
Second grade, buried
Somewhere in your closet.
You’re six and running across
the playground, as fast
As your short legs can carry you.
So fast, you trip and go flying—
among the birds of the sky—
until you land like a ripped plant
from the Earth and come home,
Knowing what pain tastes like
in your mouth and knees, but still.
You can’t shake off that feeling.
It was as if you were a rocket,
Aiming for the blanket of unknown matter.
There are risks, but somehow, you feel at home
In the midst of this foreign world.
The sea of black is not so dark, not when it’s home
To floating lanterns and hidden jewels.
One part nature, one part choice.
It will only be a fleeting second
in a hundred years.