"You are so trusting and it’s miraculous,”
My friend says
and I shrug.
“I guess.”
Though I don’t find it a miracle.
Miracles look like tiny bodies beating Leukemia
or mothers lifting up massive cars to protect their babies after an accident,
Like my father’s belly laugh
and my lioness matriarch continuing to provide
when his laughter is forever sealed in a wooden box.
Nothing about me looks like miracle.
I’m a boiling pot of salted wounds,
broken shards of the person I once was.
Before.
Now I leave out buckets for tears and tennis shoes at the door
because I’ll run when my eyelids get too leaky.
My fingers have calluses on them from playing guitar
but I like the way it feels.
It is the only part of me that hardens.
I will always be the one with a bloodied heart
and I prefer it that way.
I unzip any layer of protection surrounding wounds
without a single strip of gauze in sight.
I wear a purple heart.
Which makes sense.
It is my favorite color.
I tell her
I’d rather stitch myself back together
than never know how it feels to come apart for someone wonderful.
And it’s true
I came apart for someone wonderful.
I’m still finding remnants of you scattered throughout my room,
A miracle of a man
who I trust again and again
even when I know it’s a rarity
that miracles do come true. "
-Eastman